UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT   LOS  ANGELES 


Gift    of 
ALBERT   SHELBY   LEVIN 0 


AliCll  JJUU1VI 


KNOTS  UNTIED: 


OR, 


WA.YS 


HIDDEN  LIFE 


AMERICAN  DETECTIVES. 


BY 


OFFICER   GEORGE   S.  McWATTERS, 

LATE  OF  THE  METROPOLITAN  POLICE, 
NEW  YORK. 


A  NARRATV'E  OF   MARVELLOUS    EXPERIENCES  AMONG   ALL    CLASSES 
OF  SOCIETY,  — CRIMINALS    IX  HIGH   LIFE,  SWINDLERS,   BANK 
ROBBERS,   THIEVES,   LOTTERY  AGENTS,   GAMBLERS, 
NECROMANCERS,    COUNTERFEITERS,    BUR- 
GLAUS,  ETC.,  ETC.,  ETC. 


HARTFORD:    •••* 
J.   B.    BURR   AND   HYDE. 

1871. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1871,  by 

J.  B.  BURK  AND  HYDE, v 
In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


Erctrotyped  it  AM  B-.rton  Stereotype  Foundry, 
No.  19  Spring  Lane. 


PREFACE. 


I  AM  aware  that  the  preface  of  a  book  is  usually  the  last  portion 
of  it  which  is  read— if  read  it  is — and,  therefore,  of  little  import;  and  I 
have,  consequently,  deliberated  somewhat  whether  I  would  encumber 
the  following  talcs  with  a  prefix  or  not ,  but  perhaps  it  is  due  to  the 
reader  to  s;iy  (what,  however,  is  apparent  enough  in  some  ot  the  tales 
themselves)  that  the  experiences  and  observations  therein  narrated, 
are  not  all  personally  mine;  tli.it  some  of  th  111  have,  at  different  times, 
been  detailed  to  me  by  old  and  tried  personal  friends,  of  deep  knowl- 
edge of  the  world,  and  of  extreme  sagacity,  and  that  I  have  presented 
them  here,  together  with  my  own,  in  special  instances,  as  being  equally 
illustrative  with  mine  of  subtle  human  nature. 

What  is  specifically  my  own  in  these  talcs,  and  what  little  I  am 
in  lebted  for  to  my  good  friends,  I  leave  to  such  as  may  be  curious,  to 
determine  for  themselves.  It  must  now  suffice  them  (for  in  the  experi- 
ment of  "  book-making  "  I  have  nearly  lost  my  best  patience — amidst 
its  multiplicity  of  perplexities;  its  "proof-reading,"  the  awful  blunders 
of  the  printers,  the  "  bungling  "  of  the  mails,  the  calls  for  "  more  copy  " 
at  inopportune  moments,  etc.,  etc.) — it  must  suffice  them,  I  repeat,  sim- 
ply to  know,  that  whatever  experiences  here  recited  are  not  my  own,  are 
equally  authentic  with  mine,  and,  in  my  judgment,  add  to  the  merits  (if 
"  Knots  Untied  "  (if  merits  it  has)  rather  thr.n  detract  therefrom.  So, 
since  it  cannot  be  that  the  reader  will  peruse  my  book  for  my  sake,  but 
for  the  book's  sake  and  for  his  own,  let  him  thank  me  for  whatever 
"clearer  light"  I  have  accepted  from  others  for  his  benefit. 

It  was  only  at  the  instance — I  might  properly  say  by  the  repeated 
importunity — of  certain  partial  friends  of  mine,  that  I  was  first  induced 
t.»  put  into  r-jadable  form  some  of  the  notes  of  my  experiences  and  obser- 
vations, particularly  those  running  through  a  perio  I  of  a  dozen  years  of 
official  life,  preceded  by  a  dozen  more  of  a  quasi-official  character.  I  would 
remark  here,  that  no  chronological  order  has  been  observed  in  the  colla- 
tion of  the  tales  composing  "  Knots  Untied." 

Having,  from  my  early  days,  been  interested  with  various  sociologi- 
cal problems,  it  has  been  my  wont  to  fix  in  memoranda,  of  one  form  or 
another,  such  data  as  I  conceived  worthy,  as  simple  statistics  or  eccen- 
tric facts,  bearing  upon  the  great  general  question  of  human  suffering 


215948 


an;l  crime,  an  1  their  causes,  and  the  maaas  of  tiieir  depiction,  an  I  final 
extinction  also  (.vs  I  firmly  believe)  in  '"the  good  tinu  coming,"  when 
S  -ii-ii.jc  shall  h.ivc  ripened  the  paltry  and  distracted  civilization  of  the 
r  in  >  that  enlightenment  in  which  alone  the  race  should  be  con- 
t-'iite.  1  to  live, — in  which  only,  in  truth,  they  can  be  fully  content  with 
existence, —  m  I  which  the  now  subject  classes  could,  it'  they  were  wisa 
enough  to  km>w  their  rights  and  their  power,  command  in  concert,  for 
themselves,  an  1  the  ruling  classes  as  well. 

A:i  1  these  partial  friends  of  mine  have  thought  I  might  do  some  good, 
.111 1  tYit  I  ou^ht  to,  however  little  it  may  prove,  tj  the  cause  of  human 
Iiap2>iiiv!3!*, — in  tho  intent  thereby  of  enlarging  the  security  of  the  inno- 
cent from  the  in  ichinations  of  the  depraved, — by  the  detail  of  certain 
wily  "offences  ag-unst  the  law  and  good  order  of  society,"  while  demon- 
strating therein  h  >w  sure  of  final  discovery  and  punishment  are  the 
criminally  vicious,  however  crafty  and  subtle,  in  these  days,  when  the 
art  of  p  >liee  detection  has  become  almost  an  exact  science. 

Authors  are  sometimes  sensitive  (I  believe),  about  the  reception  which 
they,  "  by  their  works,"  may  meet  with  at  the  hands  of  the  public ;  and 
not  seldom  do  they,  in  more  or  less  ingenious  ways,  attempt  to  cajole 
their  renders,  through  well-studied  prefaces,  into  a  prejudicedly  favora- 
ble mood  regarding  the  body  of  their  books.  Perhaps  mine  is  a  singu- 
larly good  fortune,  in  that  my  partial  and  importuning  friends  before 
alluded  to,  have  given  me  consoling  courage  to  "go  forward"  and  pub- 
lish \vh  it  they  are  so  kind  as  to  be  pleased  with,  by  the  assurance  that 
they  will  take  upon  themselves,  and  patiently  bear,  all  the  severe  criti- 
c  i<m.  the  curses,  the  wanton  blows,  etc.,  which  may  be  aimed  at  me  1>\ 
'•  hypercritical  critics,"  or  by  \exed  and  wrathful  readers;  while  I  shall 
be  left  to  enjoy,  unalloyed,  all  the  "  blessings  "  with  which  the  rest  of 
the  public  may  be  pleased  to  favor  me. 

I  regarded  this  as  so  excellent  an  expression  of  human  [c]  goodness 
upon  the  part  of  these  my  friends,  that  I  consented  to  honor  it,  by  sub- 
mission to  thi-ir  will.  Hence  these  tales,  in  their  printed  form, — 
designed  at  first  to  beguile  an  hour  for  particular  frk-nds  in  the  read- 
ing, as  the  same  had  beguiled  many  long  hours  for  me  in  the  writing, — 
and  not  primarily  intended  to  be  put  into  the  form  of  a  book.  If  any 
good  to  the  world  accrues  from  their  publication,  through  the  instruction 
whioh  they  may  afford  to  some,  perhaps ;  or  by  their  possibly  enlarging 
the  scope  of  the  reader's  charity  for  the  erring,  or  in  any  way,  I  shall  be 
gratified  ;  and  so  (it  M  but  fair  in  me  to  add  this,  for  they  are  human,  ami 
sensitive  to  the  joys  which  "  a  good  done  "  brings) — and  so,  to  repeat, 
will  also  be  my  aforesaid  partial,  good  friends. 

GEORGE  S.  MCWATTERS. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

PUBLISHERS'    INTRODUCTION 18 

BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTES. 

OFFICER  GEORGE   S.   McWATTERS. 

PERSONAL  DESCRIPTION  —  ALWAYS  TEMPERATE  —  IN  WONDERFUL 
PRESERVATION  —  "A  GOOD  FACE  TO  LOOK  INTO  "  —  NEITHER  SCOTCH, 
IRISH,  NOR  ENGLISH  IN  APPEARANCK. 21 

WHERE   HE   WAS   BORN  AND   REARED. 

NO  MATTER  WHERE  A  MAN  IS  BORN  — KILMARNOCK,  SCOTLAND  —  NORTH 
OF  IRELAND AMBITIOUS  BOYHOOD  "THE  BEAUTIFUL  LAND  BE- 
YOND THE  WESTERN  WATERS  '* INTENSELY  DEMOCRATIC BECOMES 

A  MECHANIC.         .  .  . 23 

REMOVES  TO  LONDON. 

FOLLOWS  HIS  TRADE  IN  LONDON  MARRIES  THERfc HIS  INTERESTING 

FAMILY  MISS  CHARLOTTE,  HIS  ELDEST  DAUGHTER HER  MARRIAGE 

—  SIGNOR    ERRANI. 23 

MIGRATES  TO   THE   UNITED   STATES. 

OFFICER  MCWATTERS'  GREAT  SYMPATHY  FOR  CHATTEL  AND  WAGES- 
SLAVES  —  HIS  COUNTLESS  DEEDS  OF  BENEVOLENCE  LEAVE  1^31  NO 
TIME  TO  GET  RICH  —  ANECDOTE  OF  PROFESSOR  AGASSIZ.  .  .  .24 

SETTLES   IN   PHILADELPHIA,  AND   STUDIES   LAW. 

A  YEAR  (181S-9)  IN  A  LAW  OFFICE  —  REVELS  IN  THE  STUDY  OF  BLACK- 
STONE,  KENT,  CHITTY,  ETC.  A  BEAUTIFUL  DREAM 25 

A  HEART  TOO  SOFT  FOR  A  LAWYER. 

THE  BEAUTIFUL    DREAM   OVERSHADOWED  —  POOR    ORPHANS    AND    POOR 

DEBTORS  TOUCH  HIS  HEART  WITH    THEIR  SUFFERINGS  DISTRAINING 

GOODS    FOR  RENT  —  A  TOUCHING    STORY  —  MCWATTERS'    BENEVOLENT 
DEVICE  —  HE  QUITS  THE  LAW  IN  DISGUST. 25 

DEPARTS   FOR   CALIFORNIA. 

THE  "  GOLD  FEVER  "  IN  THE  NEW  ELDORADO  THE  RECKLESS  WAR- 
FARE OF  GREED  AND  CRIME  —  MEN  LOST  THEIR  CONSCIENCES  THERE 

—  RETURN. 26 

BACK    IN  NEW  YORK. 

ASSOCIATED  WITH  LAURA  KEENE,  AS  HER  AGENT  —  FIRST  CALLED  UPOW 
TO  ENACT  THE  PART  OF  A  DETECTIVE  —  HIS  SUCCESS,  A-XD  WHAT  IT 
LED  TO.  >  27 


VI  CONTENTS. 

MR.   Me  WAITERS   AS   AGENT  AND  LECTURER. 

BECOMES    EXHIBITING    LECTURER,  ACCOMPANYING    A  GRAM)    PANORAMA 

—  IN    THE     CHIEF    CITIES     AND    TOWNS  THE    COUNTESS    OF    LANDS- 

FELDT,   OH  "LOLA  MONTEZ." 28 

ANECDOTE  OF  LOLA  MOXTEZ   AND    LAURA    KEENE. 

AX  AMUSING  STORY LOLA  BECOMES  PIOUS,  AND  SELLS  HER  THEATRI- 
CAL WARDROBE — LAURA  rii:<  IIASES  A  PART A  SPLENDID  SILK 

1-RESS    PATTERN    PROVES    TO    BE     FURNITURE  CLOTH ATTACKS    A.VD 

KETORTS THE  GOODS  FINALLY  BURNED  UP 28 

MR.   McWATTEKS  SOLVING   SOCIAL  PROBLEMS. 

HIS  GREAT  INTEREST  IX  SOCIOLOGICAL  QUESTIONS — HOW  SHALL  THE 
GRIEVOUS  BURDENS  WHICH  FALL  UPON  THE  LABORING  CLASSED  BE 
MADE  LIGHTER  ? 29 

OUR  SUBJECT  AND  THE  PUBLIC  PRESS. 

REMARKABLE  RECORD  —  PUSILLANIMOUS  HIGHWAYMEN  TWO  KNIGHTS 

OF  THE  ROAD  FRIGHTENED  BY  A    SPECTACLE-CASE 30 

McWATTERS  ENTERS  THE  METROPOLITAN  POLICE  FORCE. 

DISTINGUISHES    HIMSELF  THEREIN  IN  MANY  WAYS   DURINO  A  PERIOD  OF 

TWELVE  YEARS OFFICER  MCWATTERS    UBIQUITOUS THE  STARVING 

PEOPLE     OF     KANSAS     (l*'l)     ELICIT    HIS     SYMPATHIES — A     FORCIBLE 
PUBLIC  SPEAKER.          .  . 33 

PERSONAL   INCIDENTS. 

i.S  CHILDREN  AND  £IEN  FROM  WATERY  GRAVES —  ALWAYS  AT  HIS 
POST  OF  DUTY RECEIVES  THE  WARMEST  PRAISE  OF  HIS  CHIEF  OFFI- 
CER, SUPERINTENDENT  KENNEDY  — THE  LATE  SUPERINTENDENT 
JOURDAN "i 

OFFICER  McWATTERS  DURING  THE   LATE   CIVIL  WAR. 

HIS  FORESIGHT  —  UNDERSTOOD  THE  MISERIES  OF  THE  SUBJECT-CLASSES 

HIS  APPRECIATION    OF     REPUBLICAN     INSTITUTIONS PREVENTED 

BY  UNTOWARD  CIRCUMSTANCES  FROM  GOING  TO  THE  FRONT  —  NOT  OF 
THE  "  NOBLE  HOME  GUARD." 36 

FIRST   SEIZURE  OF  GUNS   AT  THE  NORTH. 

O:  :  !CER  MrWATTERS  INTERCEPTS  DAHLGREN  GUNS  ON  THEIR  WAY  TO 
THE  REBELS,  MAY  11,  1801  —  HONORABLE  MENTION  P.Y  THE  NEW  YORK 
TRIBUNE  —  FERNANDO  WOOD*8  INFAMOUS  APOLOGY  TO  TOOMBS  — 
WOOD  AND  MCWATTERS  COMPARED —  THE  GRATITUDE  OF  REPUBLICS.  "7 

OFFICER    McWATTERS'   SERVICES    THROUGH    THE  PUBLIC 

PRESS. 

Altf.E  AND  SPIRITED  LETTERS  TO  THE  PRESfJ —  NOBLE  WORDS  AD- 
DRESSED TO  THE  WOKKINGMEX  OF  THE  NATION 88 

KINDLY  AND  WISE   PROVIDENCE. 

VXIVATE  APPEAL  FOR  LEMONS  FOR  THE    FAMISHING   8OI.DII.R*.   MAY,    1*^1 

IT    DID  A  BRAVE  WORK  —  EVENTUALLY   INSPECTOR  CARPENTER   1.1  - 

\  ^   VI. S     THAT     IT     WAS     ONE     OF     OFFICER     McWATTERS'     BENEVOLENT 

DEEDS OTHER    EFFECTIVE    MODES    OF  AIDING     SICK    AND  MOUNDED 

SOLDIERS  AND  THEIR  FAMILIES.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .39 


CONTENTS.  Til 

«'  RIOT   WEEK,"  JULY,   18G3.  -,  OFFICER  McWATTERS  IN  TUB 
THICK   OF   THE   FIGHT. 

THK. STATE  OF  THE  PUBLIC  PULSE  OF  THE  NORTH  WHEN  THE  RIOT  BROKE 
OUX  —  THE  NUMBER  KILLED  THAT  WEEK  IN  NEW  YORK  ESTIMATED  AT 
OVER  FOURTEEN  HUNDRED  !  JICWATTERS  AND  HIS  FELLOW-OFFI- 
CERS FIGHT  THEIB  WAY  THROUGH  THE  MOB  INTO  THE  TRIBUNE 

OFFICE MCWATTERS     FELLED     TO     THE     GROUND;      SPRINGS     TO    HIS 

FEET,    AND  DEALS  DESTRUCTIVE  BLOWS  UPON  HIS  ASSAILANTS.     .  .       40 

OFFICER   McWATTERS   AND   HIS   LITERARY  ASSOCIATES. 

C'>UXTLESS  CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  THE  PUBLIC  PRESS  HIS  UNPRETEN- 
TIOUS CAREER — "  PFAFF'S,"  A  FAMOUS  RESORT  FOR  AUTHORS  AND 

AilTISTS AX  INTERESTING  SKETCH  OF  THE  PLACE,  AND  THE  HOST  OF 

M  :WATTER3'  AUTHOR     FRIENDS    WHO    MEET    THERE;    AN    ILLUSTRIOUS 

ARRAY OF  THE  DEAD  OF  THIS  GOODLY  HOST A  MOST  INTERESTING 

RETROSPECTION —  JICWATTERS*  AUTHORS*  LIBRARY.      .  .  .  .42 

OFFICER   McWATTERS  AS   THE   GOOD   SAMARITAN. 

AS  A  PHILANTHROPIST  OFFICER  MCWATTERS  HAS  MOST  DISTINGUISHED 
HIMSELF HIS  ACQUAINTANCE  WITH  SOCIOLOGICAL  SCIENCES  DEMON- 
STRATES TO  HIM  THE  FOLLY  OF  FRAGMENTARY  REFORMS  ;  YET  HE 
CONTINUES  HIS  WONDERFUL  INDIVIDUAL  CHARITIF.S  —  PATCHWORK 
CHARITY  —  HIS  VITALITY  OF  BENEVOLENCE  — MCWATTERS  IN  THE 
KAXKS  OF  THE  HOWARDS  OF  THE  WORLD 45 

McWATTERS  AND   THE   SOLDIERS. 

THE    POOR  VETERAN    SOLDIER'S    BEST  FRIEND MCWATTERS'  GENEROUS 

ENTHUSIASM  IN  BEHALF  OF  THE  POOR  SOLDIERS  AND  THEIR  FAMILIES 

HIS  GREAT  PASSION  —  THE  POETRY   OF  HIS  CURRENT  LIFE.       .  .       4? 

LADIES  UNION   RELIEF   ASSOCIATION. 

A  GP.AND  CHARITABLE  ORGANIZATION  DISTINGUISHED  LADIES  OF  NEW 

YOR«  AT  ITS  HEAD  —  ITS  SCOPE  OF  SELF-IMPOSED  DUTIES  OF  BENEV- 
OLENCE—  ASSISTED  BY  AN  ADVISORY  BOARD  OF  THE  LEADING  SiLN 
OF  THE  CITY;  OFFICER  MCWATTERS  THE  CHIEF  AND  MOST  ACTIVE 
MAN  THEREOF SUPERINTENDENT  KENNEDY  SECONDS  OFFICER  Mc- 

WATTER3*  BENEVOLENT  WORK REV.  DR.  BELLOWS*  WARM  INDORSE- 
MENT OF  MCWATTERS'  GOOD  DEEDS— THE  LATE  SUPERINTENDENT 
JOL'RDAN  CRUELLY  INTERFERES  WITH  MCWATTERS*  LABORS  OF  LOVE 
—  DEATH  CALLS  FOR  MR.  JOURDAN  :  WHERE  THEY  PUT  HIM,  AND 

W!IO  FOLLOWED  HIS  HEARSE OFFICER  MCWATTERS  RESIGNS,  AND 

LEWES  THB  POLICE  FORCE,  IN  OIJDEIl  THAT  HE  MAY  CONTINUE  HIS 
IIUUANITARY  WOKK  COPY  OF  HIS  LETTER  OF  RESIGNATION  AP- 
POINTED TO  A  POST  IN  THE  CUSTOM  HOUSE  COMPLIMENTARY  NO- 
TICES BY  VARIOUS  JOURNALS  OX  THE  OCCASION  OF  -MCWATTERS*  RES- 

iolN'ATION. £0 

THE  SWINDLING  BOUNTY  CLAIM  AGENTS. 

OFFICER     MCWATTER3*  RELENTLESS    OPPOSITION    TO    THE    SWINDLERS  

THEIR    INFAMOUS      MODES    OF    OPERATION    EXPLAINED  —  McAVATTERS* 

PLAN    OF    WARFARE  HE    ROUTS    THEIR    FOKCES    AND    AVINS  A  GP.KAT 

VICTORY  —  SERIOUSLY  THREATENED  BY  THE  SWINDLERS  MCWAT- 
TERS APPEALS  TO  CONGRESS,  AND  GETS  A  NEW  ACT  PAS.SED  CHIEF 

MEMBERS     OF    CONGRESS     M'HO     GAVE    HIM      THHIR      AID PAYMENTS 

UNDER  TUB  NEW  LAW  —  THE  GRATITUDE  OF  THE  POOR  SOLDIERS 
AND  THEIR  FAMILIES  — "  HOW  A  POOR  MAN  FEELS  !"  —  THE  NA- 
TIONAL CEMETERIES  AND  THE  DEAD  VETERANS  —  MoWATTERS*  FUR- 
THER WORK  FOR  THE  SOLDIERS.  .  ....  55 


Vlll  CONTEXTS. 

HONORABLE   TESTIMONIALS   TO   OFFICER  McWATTERS. 

PRESENTATION  OF  A  GOLD  WATCH  BY  THE  LADIES*  UNION  Ul.l.II.K  ASSO- 
CIATION —  COMMENTS  T1IEKEON  BY  THE  PUBLIC  PRESS OFFICER  Mc- 

WATTERS*  GREAT     POPULARITY  —  A    RESUME     OF    SOME     OF     OFFICER 
ilcWATTERS*  GOOD  DEEDS,  BY  TUB  SUN,  TIMES,  TRIBUNE,  ETC.     .  .       62 

THE   BELLEVUE   HOSPITAL   INIQUITY. 

TIIK  RASCALITY  EXPOSED  IN  A  MASTF.RLY  WAY  —  THE  HORRORS  OF  THE 
HOSPITAL  PICTURED — THE  WAR  CARRIED  ON  THROUGH  THE  PAPERS 
— OFFICER  MCWATTERS  DIRECTS  THE  BATTLE —  TIIK  SCAMPS  HROUGIIT 
TO  TERMS,  AND  THE  SICK  POOR  AT  THE  HOSPITAL  NO  LONGER  TREAT- 
ED LIKE  DOGS  — THE  CITIZENS*  ASSOCIATION,  AND  ITS  CONNECTION 

WITH  THE  FIGHT  — BENEFICENT  RESULTS. 65 

CONCLUSION. 

OFFICER  M<?WATTERS  IX  HIS  CONTINUING  LABORS  OF  LOVE HIS  FA- 
MOUS LETTER  IN  BEHALF  OF  THE  POOR  VETERAN  SOLDIER  ORGAN 
GRINDERS  —  ELOQUENT  WORDS  OF  SOCIAL  STATESMANSHIP  THEREIN 
A  GREAT  MORAL  DUTY WHEN  IT  CAN  BE  PROPERLY  DONE LA- 
BOR MUST  BE  PROTECTED PARTING  TRIBUTE  TO  OFFICER  GEORGE 

8.  McWATTERS,  THE   TRUE    MAN,  THE    STERLING  PATRIOT,  AND    PRAC- 
TICAL PHILANTHROPIST 68 

THE   ORGAN  GRINDERS. 

A  WORD  IS  THEIR  BEHALF LETTER  FROM  OFFICER  McWATTERS  (RE- 
FERRED TO  IN  BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTES)  A  SAD  STORY.  ...  72 

TEN  DOLLARS  A  MONTH :   A  STORY  OF  GRIEF  AND   JOY. 

(•'  Man'*  inhumanity  to  man 

Mukt-s  countless  thousanils  mourn  ") 

McWATTERS PATRICK    O'BRIEN  AND  HIS  SUFFERING  FAMILT LADIES* 

UNION    RELIEF    ASSOCIATION  A    STORM    OF    GRIEF  QUELLED    BY  THE 

VOICE  OF  TRUE  CHARITY 74 

MACK   AND   THE   VETERAN. 

A  TOUCHING  TALE THE  POETRY  AND  PATHOS  OF  BARE  FEET.      .     88 

LOST   IN  THE   STREETS. 

OPERATIONS  OF  THE  BUREAU  FOR  TUB    RECOVERY    OF    LOST  PERSONS 

MISSING     MEN     AND      WOMEN  TROUBLES      ABOUT     LOST     PEOPLE  

WHERE    ANU    HOW    PEOPLE  ARE    LOST  —  LOST  CHILDREN  — TIIK   DENS 

OF     MIDNIGHT  THE      HORROR     OF     A     BREAKING     DAWN  MISERY, 

SHAME,  AND  DEATH FINIS 89 

AMONG  THE   SHARKS. 

AUVENTl'RES  OF  A  FALL  RIVER  WANDERER HIS  VALUABLE  EXPERI- 
ENCE IN  NEW  YORK CATCHING  A  FLAT.  .  .  ...  97 

A   SMART   YOUNG   MAN. 

AN  AFTER-DINNER  COLLOQUY,  AND  ITS  RESULT —  A  FUNNT  AFFAIR.  .    104 

A   SUSPECTED   CALIFORNIA   MURDERER. 

ARRESTED  CHARGED    WITH   KILLING    FOUR    MEN:    A  GERMAN    FOR  HIS 

MONEY,  AND    TWO    SHERIFFS    AND  A  DIUVER    WHO    WERE    CONVEYING 
HIM  TO  PRISON. 107 

EXTENSIVE  COUNTERFEITING. 

6EIZUKE  OF  FIFTY    THOUSAND    DOLLARS  IN  SPURIOUS  POSTAL  CURRENCY 

—  ARREST  Of   T11E  COUNTERFEITER,  —  UIS.CONf LSSION.      .  .  .    10S 


CONTENTS.  IX 

THE  GAMBLER'S  WAX 'FINGER. 

CHARLES  LEGATE  —  A  FORGER —  STUDYING  HIM  UP  —  FIFTY  THOU- 
SAND DOLLARS  HIS  "  PRIZE  "  DESCRIPTION  OF  LEGATE  —  NO  TWO 

PERSONS  EVEB  AGREE  IN    DESCRIBING  ANOTHER A  MARK  HIT  UPON 

—  START  FOR  ST.  LOUIS  —  MUSINGS  —  CURIOUS  INCIDENTS  OF  MY 
JOURNEY  —  A  GENEALOGICAL  "DODGE" — ON  LEGATE'S  TRACK  AT 
LAST  —  ST.  LOUIS  REACHED  —  OF  MY  STAY  THERE  —  LEAVE  FOR  NEW 
ORLEANS  PER  STEAMER  — A  GENIAL  CROWD  OF  MEN  AND  WOMEN  ON 
BOARD  —  CHARACTERISTICS  OF  A  MISSISSIPPI  "VOYAGE"  — NAPO- 
LEON, ARKANSAS SOME  CHARACTERS  COME  ON  BOARD  THKRE A 

GAMBLING  SCENE  ON  BOARD  — ONE  JACOBS  TAKES  A  PART  —  A  PRI- 
VATE CONFERENCE  WITH  JACOBS'S  NEGRO  SERVANT  —  A  TERRIFIC 
FIGHT  ON  BOARD  AMONG  THE  GAMBLERS — JACOBS  SKT  UPON,  AND 
MAKES  A  BRAVE  DEFENCE  — HOW  I  DISCOVERED  "  JACOBS  "  TO  BE 

PROBABLY  LEGATE,  IN  THE  MELEE HE  IS  BADLY  BRUISED HIS  LIFE 

DESPAIRED  OF  —  WE  ARRIVE  IN  NEW  ORLEANS  —  JACOBS'S  IDENTI- 
FICATION AS  LEGATE  —  LEGATE  PROVES  TO  BE  VERY  KICH  —  CURIOUS 
VISIT  TO  AN  ITALIAN  ARTIST'S  STUDIO A  NOVEL  MEDICINE  ADMINIS- 
TERED TO  SIGNORE  CANCEMI — HE  GETS  WELL  AT  ONCE.  .  .  .  113 

LOTTERY  TICKET,  No.  1710. 

A  DIGNIFIED  REAL  ESTATE  HOLDER,  VERY  WEALTHY,  LOSES  SEVEN  THOU- 
SAND TWO  HUNDRED  AND  FIFTY-FIVE  DOLLARS  OUR  FIRST  COUN- 
CIL AT  THE  HOWARD  HOUSE VISIT  TO  HIS  HOUSE  TO  EXAMINE  HIS 

SAFE  AND     SERVANTS  A  LOTTERY    TICKET,  NO.  1710,   FOUND    IN    THE 

SAFE  —  IIOW  CAME  THIS   MYSTERIOUS  PAPER  THERE? CONCLUSIONS 

THEREON  —  VISIT  TO  BALTIMORE,  AND  PLANS  LAID  IN  CONJUNCTION 
WITH  THE  LOTTERY^  AGENT  TO  CATCH  THE  THIEF  —  THE  TICKET 
"  DR*WS  " THE  NEW  YORK  AGENCY  "  MANAGED  " TRAP  TO  IDEN- 
TIFY THE  THIEF  —  THE  SECURITY  AND  "  SOLITUDE  "  OF  A  GREAT  CITY 

A  NEW  YORK    BANKER  MR.   LATIMER    VISITS  A    GAMBLING    HOUSE 

IN  DISGUISE  —  IDENTIFIES  THE  SUSPECTED  YOUNG  MAN  —  THE  AGENT 
AT  BALTIMORE  WAXES  GLEEFUL HIS  PLAN  OF  OPERATIONS  OVER- 
RULED  MEETING  OF  "INTERESTED  PARTIES"  AT  THE  OFFICE  IN 

BALTIMORE A  LITTLE  GAME  PLAYED  UPON  THE  NEW  YORK   AGENT 

MR.  WORDEN,  THE    THIEF,    IDENTIFIES  THE    TICKET,  AND    FALLS    INTO 

THE     TRAP     OF    A    PRE-ARRANGED     "DRAFT" DISCLOSES     SOME    OF 

THE      IDENTICAL      BIONEY      STOLEN  WE      ARREST     HIM  —  EXCITING 

SCRAMBLE  —  THE  MONEY  RECOVERED  —  WORDEN'S    AFTER  LIFE.  .    131 

PAYNE  AND   THE   COUNTERFEITERS. 

AN  IDLE  TIME A  CALL  FROM  MY  OLD  "CHIEF" THE    CASE    IN    HAND 

OUTLINED 1  DISCOVER  AN  OLD  ENEMY  IN  THE  LIST  OF  COUNTER- 
FEITERS, AND  LAY  MY  PLANS TAKE  BOARD  IN  NINETEENTH  STREET, 

AND  OPEN  A  LAW  OFFICE  IN  JAUNCEY  COURT  —  MAKE  THE  ACQUAINT- 
ANCE OF  MRS.  PAYNE,  LEWELLYN'S  MOTHER,  AND  FINALLY  GET  AC- 
QUAINTED WITH  HIM HE  VISITS  MY  LAW  OFFICE I  AM  INGRATI- 
ATED IN  HIS  FAVOR I  TRACK  HIM  INTO  MY  ENBMY*S  COMPANY,  AND 

FEEL  SURE   OF  SUCCESS LEWELLYN  FINALLY  CONFESSES  TO    ME    HIS 

TERRIBLE   SITUATION CERTAIN  PLANS  LAID  I  MAKE  "  COLLINS'S  " 

ACQUAINTANCE  —  VISIT  A    GAMBLING    SALOON  WITH    HIM —  A  HEAVY 

WA6ER $15,000    AT    HAZARD,  PAYNE'S  ALL THE    COUNTERFEITING 

GAMBLERS   CAUGHT  TOGETHER —  SEVERE  STRUGGLE  —  PAYNE  SAVED 


Z  CONTENTS. 

AT  LAST,  AND  HIS  MONEY  TOO — A  REFORMED  POX  AND  A  HAPPY 
MOTHER  —  TWO  ''BIRDS*'  SENT  TO  THE  PENITENTIARY.  .  .  153 

THE  GENEALOGICAL  SWINDLERS. 

n:II)K  OF  AXCE8TRY  IN    THE  UNITED    STATES  IT  IS  SOMETIMES    MORE 

PROFITABLE      TO      OTHERS      THAN     TO      THOSK     WHO      INDULGE      IT  

'•PROPERTY    IN    CHANCERY  " A     WESTERN    MERCHANT,    HIS    STORY, 

AND  HOW  HE  Tol.l)  IT  —  A  FAMILY  MEETING  AT  NEW  HAVEN,  AND 
WHAT  A  MEMBER  LEARNED  THERE  — THE  GREAT  "LORD,  KING, 
A  GRAHAM  "  SWINDLE  —  THE  WAY  IN  WHICH  THE  FRAUD  WAS 

ACCOMPLISHED A  CUNNING    LETTER    FROM   "WILLIS  KING,''  OF  THE 

IIRM  OF  LORI),    KING,  .t  GRAHAM,"  TO    ONE    OF    HIS  RELATIVES — THE 

CORRESPONDENCE  OF  THIS  NOTED  FIRM  THE    SEARCH  THE  TRAP 

LAID THE      SHARPERS      CAUGHT,    AND      FOUND     TO     BE      EDUCATED 

V>IXG    MEN    OF    THE    HIGHEST    SOCIAL  STATUS THEY    ARE  MADE  TO 

DISGORGE  — A  PARADOX,  WITH  A  MORAL  IN  IT 176 

HATTIE  NEWBERRY,  THE  VERMONT  BEAUTY. 

"SOCIETY,  FOR  THE  MOST  PART,  CREATES  THE  CRIMES  WHICH  IT 
PUNISHES"  —  A  BEAUTIFUL  GIRL  ON  THE  CARS  FROM  RUTLAND,  VER- 
MONT, ON  THE  WAY  TO  BELLOWS*  FALLS,  BESET  BY  NEW  YORK 
KOGUES  — A  DETECTIVE  RECOGNIZES  IN  HER  THE  FORMER  PLAYMATE 

OK  HIS  OWN  DAUGHTER HE  ENCOUNTERS  THE  ROGUES  AT  BELLOWS* 

FALLS,   AND  KNOCKS  ONE    OF    THEM    DOWN    IN     THE    LADIES*  ROOM 

THEY  ALL  TAKE  THE  NEXT  TRAIN,  AND  MOVE  SOUTHWARD,  ON  THEIR 
WAY  TO  NEW  YORK INCIDENTS  OF  THE  JOURNEY A  THIRD  VIL- 
LAIN GKTS  ABOARD  AT  HARTFORD,  CONN.  WHY  HATTIE  WAS  GOING 

TO    KEW    YORK  AN     OLD     TALE  —  THE     DETECTIVE     GIVES     HATTIE 

lUrCI!  GOOD  ADVICE A  SKILFUL  MAN<EUVRE,  ON    ARRIVING    IN    NEW 

YORK,  TO  PUT  THE  ROGUES  OFF  THE  TRACK  —  A  PAINFUL  DISCOVERY 

AT  LAST A  DEEP,  DEVILISH   PLOT    OF  THE  VILLAINS  DRIVES  HATTIE 

TO  DESPAIR,  AND  SUE  IS  RESCUED  FROM  A  SUICIDE'S  GRAVE — THE 
l;o<,l'ES  PROVE  TO  BE  THE  MOST  HEARTLESS  OF  VILLAINS,  AND  ARE 
(  U  <;1IT,  AND  DULY  PUNISHED —  HATTIE  RETURNS  EVENTUALLY  TO 
VERMONT,  AFTER  HAVING  MARRIED  HER  OLD  LOVER  —  THIS  TALE  IS 
ONE  OF  THE  SADDEST,  AS  WELL  AS  THE  MOST  INTERESTING  OF  EXPE- 
DIENCES, THROUGHOUT 192 

ABOUT    BOGUS  LOTTERIES. 

HOW  THEY   ARE    "GOT  UP  "    —THEIR    MODE    OF    OPERATIONS  DETAILED 

—  HOW     TIIEY     MANAGE    THE    "DRAWN    NUMBERS*'   BEFOREHAND  — 
THE  GREAT  SHREWDNESS  OF  THE  OPERATORS  —  TUB  SOCIAL    RESPEC- 
TABILITY OF  THESE  —  THE  GREAT  FIRM  OF  "  G.  W.  HUNTINGTON  A  CO." 

—  THE    IMMENSE  CIRCULATION    OF  THEIR  JOURNAL. — THEIR    VICTIM, 
A  MAINE    FARMER,   WHO    BELIEVED    HE    HAD    "  DRAWN  "    FIVE  THOU- 
SAND    DOLLARS,  AND    COUNSELLOR  WHEATON,  HIS  LAWYER,  A    STORY 
TO    TUT.     POINT  —  WHO    INVEST    IN    LOTTERIES?   CHILDREN,    WIDOWS, 

CLERGYMEN,  BANK    CASHIERS.   ETC.  HOW   THE    FIRM    OF    "  O.  W.    II. 

A    CO."    WAS    .CAPTURED  — HO.    2-1    WILLIAMS    STREET,    NEW     YORK ' 

THEIR  PRETENDED    BANKING    ir.fSK —  HOW  A   BOGUS    LOTTEBV    COM- 
PANY SWINDLED  ITS  OWN  AGENTS  —  A  QUEER   TALK.  .  .  .    225 


CONTENTS.  XI 

THE  BORROWED  DIAMOND  RING. 

THE  DETECTIVE  OFFICER'S  CHIEF  "  INCUBUS  "  AT  WINTER  GARDEN 

THEATRE "HARRY  DUBOIS  " AN  EXPERT  ROOL'E  EXAMINES  HIS 

PROSPECTIVE  VICTIMS  —  SOME  SOUTHERNERS  —  HARRY  "  INTRO- 
DUCES" HIMSELF  IN  HIS  OWN  PECULIAR  AND  ADROIT  WAY HARRY 

AND  HIS  FRIEND  ARE  INVITED  TO  THE  SOUTHERNER'S  PKIVATE  BOX 

HARRY  "BORROWS"  MR.  CLEMENS'  DIAMOND  RING,  AND  ADROITLY 

ESCAPES  —  MY  DILEMMA VISIT  TO  HARRY'S  OLD  HOARDING  MIS- 
TRESS— HIS  WHEREABOUTS  DISCOVERED  ACTIVE  WORK — A  RAPID 

DRIVE    TO    PINE    STREET  —  A    FORTUNATE    LIGHT    IN    THE    OFFICE  OF 

THE  LATE  HON.  SIMEON  DRAPER A  SUDDEN  VISIT  FOR  A  "SICK 

MAN"  TO   HARRY'S  ROOM — HOW  ENTRANCE  WAS  EFFECTED  —  THE 

RING  SECURED  — HDNT  FOR  MR.  CLEMENS  —  A  SLIGHTLY  MYSTERI- 
OUS LETTER A  HAPPY  INTERVIEW. 237 

THE  MYSTERY  AT   89  STREET,  NEW  YORK. 

"  KLEPTOMANIA  " THE  TENDENCY  TO  SUPERSTITION  —  AX  OLD  KNICK- 
ERBOCKER    FAMILY  A    VERY     "PROPER"    OLD    GENTLEMAN,  A  MR. 

GARRET3ON HE  CALLS  ON  ME  AT  MY  OFFICE,  AND  FINDS  A  CURIOUS- 
LOOKING  ROOM  —  HIS  STORY  OF  WONDERS "  EVERYTHING"  STOLEN 

TALK  ABOUT    DISEMBODIED    SPIRITS THE     MYSTERY     DEEPENS  — 

PROBABLE  CONJECTURE  BAFFLED  —  VISIT  TO  MR.  GARRETSON*S  HOUSE 

MRS.  GARRETSON  A  BEAUTIFUL    AND    CULTIVATED  OLD    LADY WE 

SEARCH  THE  HOUSE AN  ATTIC  FULL  OR  OLD  SOUVENIRS  WE  LIN- 
GER AMONG  THEM MR.  GARRETSON'S  DAUGHTER  IS  CONVINCED 

THAT  DISEMBODIED  SPIRITS  ARE  THKIR  TORMENTORS  —  SHE  PUTS  AN 

UNANSWERABLE   QUESTION A  DANGEROUS  DOG  AND  THE    SPIRITS  

TEDIOUS  AND  UNAVAILING  WATCHING    FOR  SEVERAL  DAYS  AND  NIGHTS 

THE    "SPIRITS"     AGAIN    AT    WORK RE-CALLED THE    MYSTERY 

GKOWS    MORE    WONDERFUL THE    "SPIRIT"    DISCOVERED,   AND  THE 

MYSTERY  UNRAVELLED  THE  FAMILY  SENT  AWAY  THE    ATTIC    RE- 
VISITED   WITH    MR.  G.,    AND    ITS    TREASURES    REVEALED A    RE-DIS- 
COVERY OF  THE  "  SPIRITS" THE  FAMILY  REVIEW  THEIR  LONG-LOST 

TREASURES  FOUND  — REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  CAUSES  OF   THE  MYSTEUY 

A  PROBLEM  FOR  THE  DOCTORS 273 

A  SORCERESS'  TRICK;   HOW  SHE  WAS   CAUGHT. 

CLASSIFICATION  OP  JIEX  —  THE  SUPERSTITIOUS  ELEMENT   IN  MAN — 

THE    OLD   CULTS   CONTINUED    IN   THE  NEW FIRE  WORSHIP  —  THE 

SORCERERS MY  LEGAL  FRIEND'S  STORY  A  LAUGHABLE  ONE  INDEED 

THE  DESPONDENT  OLD  MAID,  THOUGH  ENGAGED  TO  BE  MARRIED  — 

AN  AUNT  ARRIVES  IN  "  THE  NICK  OF  TIME  "  —  THEY  HUNT  UP  A  FOR- 
TUNE-TELLER —  MRS.  SEYMOUR,  THE  SORCERESS,  AND  HER  PRETTY 
LITTLE  "  ORATORY  "  —  THE  "  PHIE-DIEU  " THE  OLD  MAID  MARRIES 

—  MRS.  SEYMOUR'S  PLAN  FOR  INSURING  THE  AFFECTION  OF  HUSBANDS 

—  HER  POWERS  AS   A  CHARMER  — THE  SACKED  BOX  AND  ITS  FIVE 
THOUSAND  DOLLARS  CONTENTS  — MRS.  SEYMOUR  IS  LOST  SIGHT  OF 

SEARCH  FOR  HER  IN  BROOKLYN  AND  AT  BOSTON  —  THE  rilAUMED 

BOX  OPENED  BY  MR.  AND  MRS.  ,  AND  THE  CONTENTS  FOUND  TO 

H.VVE  CHANGED  FORM  MATERIALLY MY  LEGAL  FRIEND  AND  I  LOOK 

AFTER  MATTERS  —  A  PORTION   OF  THE    TRANSFORMED  VALUABLES 
FOUND  —  A  MRS.  BRADLEY.  A  "  MEDIUM"  IN  BOSTON,  PROVKS  TO  BE 
THE   IDENTICAL   MRS.   SEYMOUR  —  THE   HIGH-TONED  DEVOTEES  OF 


xii  CONTEXTS. 

BOSTON  —    REDDEN  PROCEEDINGS    TAKEX — MRS.   SEYMOUR    AND  HER 

III  -HAND    COME    TO    TKKM8  —  RESULTS RESPECTABLE     VICTIMS    OK 

THE  SORCERERS  NUMEROUS —  DUPES  IX  THE  "ATHENS  OF  AMIK- 
ICA." 809 

DISHONEST  CLERK  AND  FATAL  SLIP  OF  PAPER, 

IX  AX  VOLT  MOOD  WITH  MYSELF  —  A  VISIT  FROM  A  CINCIXXATIAIf  — 
A  LOSS  DETAILED  —  THE  FATE  OF  A  BANKING  HOUSE  RESTING  OH 
"COLLATERALS  "  STOLEN,  WHICH  MUST  BE  RECOVERED —  A  LAWYER 
FIGURES  IX  THE  MATTER  AND  13  BAFFLED  —  THE  THIEVES  SPECULAT- 
ING FOR  A  SETTLEMENT  —  THE  SCHEME  LAID  FOR  THEIR  DETECTION 

A  BUSINESS  VISIT  TO  THE  BANKING-HOUSE THE  CHIEF  CLERK 

8EXT  TO  CHICAGO  OX  BUSINESS — A  SEARCH  REVEALING  LOVE  LET- 
TERS AND  A  LOVELY  LITERARY  LADY  —  OX  TRACK  OF  MYSTERIOUS 
"PAPERS" — THE  FATAL  SLIP  OF  PAPER  —  THE  WAY  THE  STOI.KN 

BONDS  WERE  RECOVERED THE  CHIEF  CLERK,  AND  HOW  HE  WAS 

"ENLIGHTENED" — A  NOVEL  AND  QUIET  ARREST  rx  A  CARRIAGE  — 

THE    CLERK'S  COXFEDERATE  CAUGHT  THE    PROPERTY  RESTORED 

THE  SCAMPS  DECAMP  —  THE  INNOCENT  LITERARY  LADY%8  EYES 
OPENED 322 

THE  THOUSAND  DOLLAR  LESSON. 

CHARLES  PURVIS:  TAKING  HIM  IX  CHARGE  AT  A  DISTANCE —  HANGERS 
ON  AT  THE  ST.  NICHOLAS  AND  OTHER  HOTEL  ENTRANCES  —  A  COLLO- 
QUY, SPICED  WITH  REMINI.srENCKS  OK  "  OLD  SAM  COLT,"  OF  THE 
"REVOLVER,"  IN  HIS  GAY  DAYS;  A  PARTY  AT  THE  "  OLD  CITY  HO- 
TEL," HARTFORD,  CONN.,  AND  OTHER  THINGS  —  TRINITY  COLLEGE  HOYS 

—  "GEORGE   ELLSWORTH" — PURVIS    AND  HE    START   ON  A   WALK 

"  WHERE  CAX  THEY  BE  GOING?  "  —  GOING  TO  SEE  ELLSWORTH'S 

"  FRIEND  " —  AX  EXCHANGE  OF  COATS  —  A  SURVEY  TAKEN  —  A  FIRST- 
CLASS  GAMBLING  SALOON  —  A  NEW   MAN   IN  THE  GAME  — PURVIS 

DRUGGED HIS  "  FRIENDS  "  TAKE  HIM  "HOME,"  BUT  WHERE?  — 

PURVIS  IS  RETURNED  TO  HIS  HOTEL  IN  A  STATE  OF  STUPEFACTION; 
is  AROUSED;  MISSES  A  THOUSAND  DOLLARS  —  PLANS  LAID  TO  CATCH 

HIS    LATE    FRIENDS WILLIAMS     FOUND    11Y  ACCIDENT,   AND  QUIETLY 

CAGED THE  OLD  IRISH  WOMAN'S  APPEAL  —  WILLIAMS  "EXPLAINS," 

AFTER  PROPER    INDUCEMENT  —  MOST    OF   THE    MONEY  RECOVERED 

SUPPLEMENTS 341 

THE  WOLF  IN  SHEEP'S  CLOTHING. 

THE  ANTIQUITY  OF  THAT  SHEEP'S  SKIN  AND  ITS  PIOUS  USEFULNESS  — 
A  LARGE  LOSS  OF  SILKS,  SATINS,  LACES,  AND  OTHER  GOODS  —  A  «.,s- 

8ULTATION A  LONG  STUDY  —  THE  VARIOUS  CHARACTI  I:-   "I     -i  \  1  I:- 

AL  CLERKS,  WHAT  THEY  DID,   AND  HOW  THEY   KILLED  "  SPARE  TIME  " 

—  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  CITY  ON  MORALS  —  NEW  YORK  CENTRAL    PARK 

—  A  MOST  WONDERFUL    SERIES  OF    THEFTS THE    MATTER,   INEXPLI- 
CABLE   AT    FIRST,    GROWS    MORE     SUBTLE —  A     GLEAM     OF     LIGHT    AT 
LAST A  BRIGHT    ITALIAN    BOY   PLAYS  A  PART  —  A  LADY    FOLLOW  I  I> 

MORE      LIGHT AN      EXTEMPORIZED      SERVANT     OF     Till:     (Ko'lnN 

WATER  BOARD  GETS  INSIDE  A  CERTAIN  HOUSE SARAH  CROGAN   AND 

I HOW   A  HOUSE  IN  NINETEENTH  STREET  DELIVERED  I'P  ITS  Till    »-- 

-  —  "WILLIAM    BRUCE,"   ALIAS   CHARLES    PHILLIPS  —  A   vi  uv 

8TRANGE  DENOUEMENT  —  A  MEEK  MAN  Tli  \  s  -  1  <  -1:  M  I  I)  ;  HIS  RAGE  — 
A  DELIVERY  UP,  WITH  ACCOMPANYING  JEWEL*  —  A  "WIDOW  "  KWT 
A  WIDOW  REMOVES  —  WHAT  8ARA11  CROGAX  THOUGHT.  ,.  .  368 


CONTEXTS.  xiii 

A   FORCED  MARRIAGE   SCHEME  DEFEATED. 

GOSHEN,      CONN.  A      LADY      STRANGER     THERE  A      PILGRIMAGE      TO 

GOSHEN,     VIA     THE    FAR-FAMED    MOUNTAIN     TOWN    OF    LITCHFIELD 

THE  BEAUTIFUL  WIDOW  —  AN  UNPLEASANT  REMINISCENCE  OF  DR. 
IVES,  LATE  BISHOP  OF  NORTH  CAROLINA  —  MORE  ABOUT  TUB  WIDOW 
—  SHE  LEAVES  FOR  NEW  YORK  —  AT  THE  "  MANSION  HOUSE,"  LITCH- 
FIELD—  A  MARKED  CHARACTER  ENCOUNTERED  THERE  —  MR.  "  C.  B. 

LE  ROY  "   STUDIED    AND    WEIGHED THE    BEAUTIFUL  WIDOW  AND   LE 

ROY  MEET  HER  FACE   DISCLOSES    CONFLICTING   EMOTIONS MR.  LE 

ROY  AND  THE  BEAUTIFUL  WIDOW,  MRS.  STEVENS,  TAKE  A  WALK 
DOWN  83UTH  STREET,  IN  THE  "PARADISE  OF"  LOAFERS  "  —  SYMPA- 
THIES SILENTLY  EXCHANGED  —  WE  ALL  START  FOR  THE  "  STATION  " 

THE    STAGE-COACH    "TURNS    OVER" THE    AFFRIGHTED     LE    KOY 

REVEALS     HIS    MANNERS  — A    PECULIAR     SCENE     IN    THE     CARS  —  AT 

BRIDGEPORT    I    PRESENT    MYSELF    TO  MRS.   STEVENS  AT    NEW  YORK 

AGAIN  —  A  TALE  OF  COMPLICATIONS  MRS.  STEVENS  IN  DEEP  TROU- 
BLE—  A  FRIEVD  OF  HERS  SEEKS  ME REVELATIONS A  FEARFUL 

STORY A  SECRET    MARRIAGE    AND  UNHAPPY  CONSEQUENCES THE 

WRETCH  LE  ROY  WANTS    THE    WIDOW'S  MONEY  A  TRAP  SET  FOR  LE 

ROY HE    FALLS    INTO     IT  — WEDDING     SCENE    DISARRANGED  —  THE 

WIDOW    SAVED,   AND    THE  INTENDED  FORCED  MARRIAGE  DEFEATED.   .    387 

THE  MARKED  BILLS. 

A  LITTLE  KEY  BEARING    A    MONOGRAM    SHAPES    THE    DESTINY    OF  AN  IN- 
TELLIGENT   MAN  —  HOW     THIS     MAN    CAME    TO    BE    INVOLVED    IN    THE 

MATTER  OF  WHICH    THIS  TALE    DISCOURSES MY  PARTNER  AND    I  

FAR-OFF    MYSTERIES    MAY    SOLVE    NEARER    ONES A    CONSULTATION 

A  COMMITTEE  "SEEK  LIGHT,"  AND  FIND  CONSOLATION BUR- 
GLARIES AND  HIGHWAT  ROBBERIES  BY  THE  WHOLESALE MY  PART- 
NER LEAVES  FOR  EUROPE  A  TOWN  IN  OHIO  INFESTED  —  A  "  DOC- 
TOR HUDSON"  APPEARS  IN  THE  TOWN — HE  MAKES  A  PROFESSIONAL 
VISIT  TO  ONE  MR.  PERKINS  A  COLLOQUY;  SEEKING  LIGHT A  CAL- 
LOUS HAND,  AND  A  CLEW  TO  MYSTERIES  "  DOCTOR  HUDSON  "  EX- 
TENDS HIS  ACQUAINTANCESHIP  HE  MAKES  A  NIGHT'S  VISIT  OUT  OF 

TOWN,    AND    GETS    WAYLAID    AND    ROBBED,  BUT  MANAGES    TO  CREATE 

THE     FATAL    EVIDENCE     HE    WANTS    OF    THE    ROBBERS'    IDENTITY A 

COUNCIL     OF    PRINCIPAL     CITIZENS  "  DOCTOR     HUDSON  "    MAKES    A 

DISCLOSURE A  SCHEME    LAID A    "MILITARY    INVESTMENT"    OF  A 

DOMESTIC      FORTRESS    ;      AN     EXCITING     HOUR  BREAKING      INTO     A 

HOUSE  AT  MIDNIGHT  AND  SURPRISING  A  SLEEPER  —  THE  THIEF 
LEAVES  TOWN  TO  GO  TO  CINCINNATI  TO  STUDY  MEDICINE  WITH  "  DOC- 
TOR HUDSON  " A  SUICIDE PURITANIC  MERCILESSNESS THE  MU- 
SIC TEACHER'S  INGENIOUS  LETTER  TO  HIS  LADY  LOVE.  .  .  .  414 

THE  COOL-BLOODED  GOLD  ROBBER. 

A  SUDDEN    CALL  —  GREAT    CONSTERNATION  AT  THE  BANK  IN  WALL 

STREET  TEN  THOUSAND  DOLLARS  IN  GOLD  STOLEN  —  A  HARD,  IN- 
SOLUBLE CASE  "  TRY,"  THE  SOUL  OF  SUCCESS BANKS  COMPELLED 

TO  GREATEST  CAUTIOUSNESS NO  ESPRIT  DE  CORPS  AMONG  MONEY- 
CHANGERS —  THE  WAY  I  "  CREATED  "  DETECTIVES  —  RAG-PICKERS 
MADE  USEFUL  ABOVE  THEIR  CALLING  — AN  UP-TOWN  CARRIAGE 
HOUSE,  AND  ITS  TREASURES  —  A  LAUGHING  COACHMAN  —  A  PRESENT 

COMPLICATED    EVIDENCE    UNRAVELLED  AN    OLD    OFFICE-WOMAN 

INVOLVED  IN  THE  MYSTERY —  A  BIT  OF  FUN  FURNISHES  THE  DESIRED 

"  KEY  "  "  SMOUCHING,"  AND  WHAT    CAME  OF    IT EXTENDING    MT 

ACQUAINTANCESHIP  —  THE  THIEF  FOUND  —  A  WALL   STREET   BROKER 


XIV  CONTENTS. 

—  STUDYING  III  If  —  HIS  CLERK  WILED  AWAY  —  GOOD  USE  OF  THEATRE 
TICKETS  —  THE  SCHEME  OF  IDENTIFICATION'  A  PLOT  WITHIN  A  PLOT 

THE  BROKEK  WORSTED HE  STRUGGLES  WITHIN  HIMSELF  ;  CROWS 

PALE  —  HOW  HE  EXECUTED  THE  KOliUERY —  THE  TERRIBLE  "FORCE 
OF  FXAMPLE"  SOMETIMES—  THE  THIEF  BECOMES  A  MEMBER  OF  THE 
COMMON  COUNCIL — A  SALUTARY  WARNING  TO  OTHER  THIEVES.         .  442 

$1,250,000,   OR  THE   PRIVATE   MARK. 

MONEY-GETTING  AS  RELATED  TO  CRIME A  VERY  STRANGE  HISTORY ( 

THE  MOST  WONDROUS  PURSUIT  OF  A  MAN  BY  Hid  ENEMY  WHICH  EVER 
(PROBABLY)  WAS  KNOWN  IN  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  WORLD  —  JAMES 

WILLIAM  HUBERT  ROGERS  AND  "NED"  HAGUE,  TWO  ENGLISHMEN 

"  DAMON  AND  PYTHIAS  "  IN  EARLY  LIFE  —  A  CHANGE  COMES  —  A  DE- 
PARTED AND  CONSIDERATE  UNCLE  DESCRIBED,  ONCE  A  PROTEGE  OF 

THE  EMPEROR  OF   AUSTRIA  OLIVER  CROMWELL   HAGUE,   A   RICH 

INDIA  MERCHANT A  MARVELOUS  SEARCH  FOR  A  LOST  MAN  —  A  MAN 

FOUND  AND  IDENTIFIED  BY  NUMEROUS  FRIENDS  AS  THE  ONE  IN  QUES- 
TION   PLOTTING   AND  COUNTER-PLOTTING  A    SHREWD   VERMONT 

••LAWYER"  M.VKI.S  A  THOUSAND  POUNDS  STERLING  —  THE  INDEFATI- 
GABLE   ROGERS    COMES    TO    AMERICA    IN    HIS    SEARCH  LOST    IN  THE 

VASTNESS  OF  THE   COUNTRY WE  MEET,  AND  DEPART  FOR    ST.  LOUIS 

—  TROUBLES,  AND  AN  ENLIGHTENING  DREAM A  WICKED  LAWYER 

THE  RIGHT  TO  REPENT A  SPIRITED  COLLOQUY  WITH  THE  LAWYER  — 

AN    ENEMY  FOUND  AND  SET  TO  WORK THE  GRASPING  LAWYER  OUT- 
WITTED  THE    LOST    FOUND    IN    A    TERRIBLE    CONDITION  A    LITTLE 

PRIVATE  FUN    OVER  THE  LAWYER'S  DISCOMFITURE A  SHARP  EXAMI- 
NATION AND  CROSS-EXAMINATION LAWYER  OUTWITTED,  AND  LOSES 

FIVE    HUNDRED    DOLLARS  —  MR.  ROGERS    DEPARTS  WITH    THE  "LOST 

ONE,"  BOUND  FOR  ENGLAND DROWNING  OF    THE    LATTER  AT  SEA 

THE  CHERISHED  VICTORY  OF  YEARS  VANISHES  —  OUT,  WITH  A   LAUGH.    4C1 

WILLIAM  ROBERTS  AND  HIS  FORGERIES. 

A  MAX  OF  THE  OLDEN  TYPE  HIS  SAD  STORY  ABOUT  HIS  WIFE  AND  HIM- 
SELF—  THEY  ADOPT  A  BRIGHT  BOY THE  WIFE'S  PROPHET  SPECU- 
LATIONS ABOUT  THE  BOY  —  THE  BOY  GROWS  UP  AND  GOES  TO  COL- 
LEGE  A  PLEASANT  YEAR HE  LEARNS  CERTAIN  MYSTERIES  OF 

LIFE  —  STUDENTS'  PITCHED  BATTLE  WITH  THE  FACULTY  OF  THE  COL- 
LEGE—  OF  THE  "WHITE  HORSE" —  A  WHILE  IN  A  LAWYER'S  OFFICE 

BECOMES  A  MERCHANT MAKING  MONEY  TOO  FAST  A  FATAL 

II'H  II THE  VORTEX  OF  WALL  STREET  SUNDRY  FORGERIES  —  A 

STRANGE  CAREER AN  IMPORTANT  WITNESS  LOST,  AND  FOUND  IN 

THE  INSANE  RETREAT,  HARTFORD,  CONN.  A  TERRIBLE  COMPLICA- 
TION OF  AFFAIRS;  LAWYERS  AND  ALL  BAFFLED  — I  AM  CALLED  IN 

TO    WORK    UP   THE    CASE DIFFICULTIES    ENCOUNTERED  — FATE  IN- 
TERPOSES — WENTWORTH,  THE  INSANE  WITNESS,  RECOVERS A  VAST 

DIFFERENCE  BETWEEN  BLACK    INK  AND    BLUE  INK  —  DYING  OF  GRIEF 

AN  UNHAPPY  HOUSEHOLD 492 

OLD  MR.  ALVORD'S  LAST  WILL. 

THE  DESTRUCTIVE  GREED  OF  GAIN  -r-  A  WEIRD,  WONDROUS  TALB  — 
"  WHAT  IF  THEY  BUT  KNEW  "  —  TELLING  STORIES  AWAY  FROM  HOME 
REVELATIONS  —  AN  OLD  MAN  OF  THE  HIGH  MORAL  TYPE CURI- 
OUS NOTION  ABOUT  THE  SIZE  OF  A  FAMILY — THE  MYSTIC  NUMBER 
THREE  —  PORTRAITS  OF  A  FAMILY  J  A  PERFECT  WOMAN  —  DEATH  AND 
INTRIGUES  —  A  "  FAITHFUL  SERVANT  "  —  OLD  WILLS  AND  NEW  —  LE- 
GAL COMPLICATIONS  —  TUB  LAST  WILL  MIS61SG  —  A  CBAFTY  LAWYEB 


CONTENTS.  XV 

—  A  THOROUGH    SEARCH  —  A     DIABOLICAL    COURTSHIP,    AND    FIERCE 

STRUGGLE    THROUGH    THREE   YEARS A  DETECTIVE    AT  LAST    CALLED 

INTO  THE  MATTER A  PLOT  LAID  TO    FOIL  OLD    BOYD,  AN  UNSCRUPU- 
LOUS LAWYER DID  IT    SUCCEED  ? THE  READER  PERMITTED  TO  AN- 
SWER    THE    QUESTION    FOR    HIMSELF A    VITAL    DISCOVERY  —  MORE 

PLOTTING  A  BEAUTIFUL    YOUNG    LADY  MAKES  A  DIVERSION    IN  THE 

PLANS OLD    ANDREW     WILCOX'S     FUNNY    LETTERS    SEARCHED  AND  A 

TREASURE  "  FOUND  "  AMONG  THEM  OLD  BOYD'S  CONSTERNATION 

THE  LAST  WILL  FINALLY  CARRIED  OUT "  NOTHING  IMPOSSIBLE  " 

A  FORTUNE  TOO  LARGE  TO  BE  LAUGHED  AT  A  CUNNING  WIFE  LEADS 

HER  HUSBAND  A  CURIOUS   LIFE  —  A  BIT  OF  COMFORT,  PERHAPS.  .    500 

THE   CONFIDENTIAL   CLERK. 

THE  INNOCENT  OFTEN  SUFFER  WITH  THE  GUILTY THE  DETECTIVES* 

••KEYS"  —  REGRETS  —  LEONARD    SAVAGE,  A  YOUNG   MAN  OF  NEW 

HAMPSHIRE,  AND  HIS  FAMILY  STOCK RICHARD  BROOKS,  A  WEALTHY 

NEW  YORK  MERCHANT  HIS  VISIT  TO  YOUNG  SAVAGt's  FATHER 

RESULTS PARTIAL  BIOGRAPHY  OF  MR.  BROOKS,  IN  WALL  STREET 

AND  ELSEWHERE A  SLAVE  TO  FORTUNE  A  FATHER'S  PRIDE MR. 

BROOKS'  FEARFUL  DREAM MR.  BROOKS  IN  THE  OLD  HOME  OF  HIS 

CHILDHOOD  HOW  A  TRUE  MAN  TREATS  HIS  WIFE  FAMILY  ASPI- 
RATIONS —  THE  LOVE  OF  YOUNG  MEN  COUNTRY  AND  CITY  TEMPTA- 
TION    A  "  NEW  SUIT,"  AND  A  TRIP  TO  THE  MOUNTAINS  —  A  SURPRIS- 
ING PRESENT A  HAPPY  SEASON  A  FEARFUL  CHANGE  COMES  

TERRIBLE  RESULTS   OF  AN  UNJUST  JUDGMENT —  STRANGEST  THING 

EVER  KNOWN A  CATHOLIC  PENITENT  AN  ACTOR  IN  THE  SCENES 

REMORSE  UNRAVELLINGS  IN  AN  UNEXPECTED  WAY A  SPEEDY  VOY- 
AGE TO  EUROPE  TO  RESTORE  THE  WRONGED  TO  HIS  RIGHT  PLACE.  .  542 

THE  PECULIAR  ADVERTISEMENTS. 

THE  DOCTRINE  OF  CHANCE A  NIGHT  AT  THE  GIRARD  HOUSE,  PHILA- 
DELPHIA  AN  INOFFENSIVE  GENTLEMAN,  MY  ROOM-MATE  —  I  DIS- 
TURB HIS  SLEEP A  QUEER  TALE  NELLIE  WILSON  AND  HER  UNCLE 

—  WILLIAM  WILSON,  NELLIE'S  DISSOLUTE  COUSIN  —  FEARFUL  LOVE- 
MAKING  —  A  RESCUE  A  CALL  TO  DUTY A  DEAD  MAN'S  WILL  MISS- 
ING  STUDYING     UP  THE    CASE  WITH    THE  GREAT  CRIMINAL  LAWYER, 

JUDGE  8.  FATE    INTERPOSES  A    MYSTERIOUS    AND  PECULIAR  AD- 
VERTISEMENT   AT  THE    CONTINENTAL  HOTEL,  WAITING  AND  WATCH- 
ING—  AN  "APPEARANCE"  —  WILLIAM   WILSON  AGAIN  —  AN  UPPKK 

ROOM,   AND    THE  VILLAINS     THEREIN A    PRIVATE     CONFERENCE    NOT 

ALL  SECRET A  FLASH  OF  VICTORY  BEFORE  UTTER  DEFEAT NOTES 

AND  DOCUMENTS  EXCHANGED  —  BASE  REJOICINGS FATAL  NEGLECT 

THE  SURPRISE  COMPLETE  DISCOMFITURE  END  ACCOMPLISHED 

"  COALS    OF    FIRE,"    BUT  THEY  DO  NO  GOOD VIOLENT     DEATH  — 

HAPPY  CONSEQUENCES  —  PECULIAR  ADVERTISEMENTS  UNRAVELLED.  .    571 

COL.  NOVENA,  PRINCE  OF   CONFIDENCE  MEN. 

THE  CONFIDENCE  MAN,  PAR  EXCELLENCE  ;  A  REAL  "ARTIST" "  COL. 

NOVENA,"  "COUNT  ANTONELLI,"   "  GEN.  ALVEROSA,"  "SIR  RICHARD 

MURRAY,"  MAKES  A  VISIT  A  MAN  t>Ft!RRAT  NATURAL  ABILITY,  WITH 

"A  SCREW  LOOSE  " A  BIT  OF  "  PHILOSOPHY  " THE  MAN  DESCRIBED, 

VERSATILE,  AGILE.  BRAVE,  DARING  —  THE  COLONEL  ASA  GALLANT 

CURIOUS  TALE  ABOUT  TWO  SISTERS  AND  COL.  NOVENA PRESIDENT 

BUCHANAN,  PROFESSOR  HENRY,  GEN.  FREMONT,  AND  MR.  SEWARD  OF 
THE  NUMBER  OF  HIS  FRIENDS  —  DISHONEST  WAYS  OF  DOING  "  LEGIT- 
IMATE BUSINESS  " A  SHOCKING  BAD  MEMORY  THE  COLONF.L  AS  A 

PHILANTHROPIST  —  COMBS  TO  GRIEF  —  AT  WASHINGTON,  D.  C.  —  SAR- 
ATOGA TEMPTS  THE  COLONEL.  —  11IS  SUCCESSES  THERE  —  A  CHANGE 


XVI  CONTENTS. 

OF  CIRCUMSTANCES  —  A  VALUABLE  DIAMOND  NECKLACE  LOST  — THE 
GREAT  MVSTKRY  —  HISTORIC  C1IAKACTEK  OF  THE  NECKLACE  —  THOR- 

<>i  i. M  M:U:CIIING —  TUB  SHREWDEST  SCAMPS  GENERALLY  HAVE  BET- 

TKR  REPUTATION  THAN    MOST  PEOPLE  TOO  GOOD  A  "  CHARACTER  " 

A  MATTER  «>r  SI  M'I<  IoN  —  "  MR.  IIKNKY   IXMAN,   ARTIST,"  IS  CREATED 

—  HEADWAY  MADE  —  THE  NECKLACE    COMES    TO    LIGHT    IN    THE  POS- 
SESSION    OF     A      MOST     REMARKARLE     WOMAN GOODNESS     IS     HAD 

PLACES  A  LIVING    MORAL    PARADOX AN    "  rNFORTl'NATE  "    GOOD 

SAMARITAN  — THE     GENERAL'S     SENSE      OF     HONOR     WOUNDED  —  TO 

CANADA DOWN    THE     RAPIDS    OF     THE     ST.     LAWRENCE A     TOMB 

IN    GREENWOOD  —  RENDERING     TO    WOMAN     HER     DUE A    BLESSED 

CHARITY  —  WALL  STREET  CORRUPTS  THE  MORALS  OF  THE  NATION.       .    689 

CIRCUMSTANTIAL  EVIDENCE. 

A  ROBBERY ONE  OF  THE  FEMALE  ATTACHES  OF  THE    GREAT    KOSSfTII 

—  A  WIDOW     LADY  OF    RANK    IN    HUNGARY KOSSt'TIl's     SISTER A 

BOARDING-HOUSE    AT    NEWARK,    N.     J.,    AND    ITS    INMATES  —  SUNDRY 

FACTS  AND  CONSIDERATIONS  BEAUTY  WINS  —  AN  INVESTIGATION 

SERVANTS    EXAMINED  — THE    PATENT-ROOF    MAKER "TRACING"    A 

WAN  —  A  HOLLOW  WALKING-STICK  WITH  MONEY  IN  IT NO  CLEW  YET 

A    PATHETIC     BLUNDER REVELATIONS     IN     DREAMS  A     BIT     OF 

PAPER  TELLS  A  STORY — IDENTIFICATION THIEF  ARRESTED CON- 
DITIONAL SETTLEMENT  — TRIUMPHAL  VISIT  TO  THE  WIDOW "  WHITE 

LIE,"  AND  ANNOUNCEMENT DOUBTING  —  PERFECT  EVIDENCE  SOME- 
TIMES IMPERFECT  UNSOLVED  PROBLEM  ;    WHO  DID  THE  ROBBERY?      CIO 

THE  COUNTERFEIT  MONEY  SPECULATORS. 

'•MONEY"  —  THE  COUNTERFEITERS'  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY  —  THE  CUN- 
NING   OF    BANK    BILLS NO    VALID    BAXK    BILLS     ISSUED A    THICK 

OF  THE  BANKS  TO  EVADE  THE    LAW SWINDLING  UNDER  "COLOR  OF 

LAW,"  AND  IN  DKFIANCE  THEREOF;    A  VAST  DISTINCTION COUNTER- 
FEITERS AS  "  PUBLIC  BENEFACTORS"  —  THE  REGULAR  COUNTERFEIT-      * 
ERS  EMBARRASSED  BY  THE  BOGUS  ONES  —  »IR.  "  FERGUSON'S  "  MAR- 
VELLOUS LETTER COUNTLESS  COMPLAINTS  —  THE  ''HONEST  FARM- 
ER" OF  VERMONT,  AND  HIS   SPECULATION  WITH  THE  COUNTERFEIT 

MONEY  MEN WHAT  HE  SENT  FOR,  AND  WHAT  HE  GOT —  A  SECURELY 

DONE-UP  PACKAGE A  "DOWN-CELLAR"   SCENE THE   "HONEST 

FARMER'S"    CONFUSION  —  A  BIT   OF  LOCAL   HISTORY  RELATING  TO 

THOMASTON,  CONN.  THE  HONEST  OYSTER  DEALER  THERE,  AND  THE 

NINETY  DOLLARS  "  C.  O.  D." A  QUESTION  UNSETTLED HOW  THE 

"  HONEST  FARMER  "  OF  VERMONT  CHEATED  ME  AT  LAST.    .         .         .  GLMJ 

THE  DETECTIVE   SYSTEM. 

TIIH  NECESSITY  OF  THE  DETECTIVE  SYSTEM  GENERALLY  DISCUSSED 

STATE  OF  SOCIETY  WHICH  CREATED  IT REGULAR  AND  IRREGULAR 

COBBERS  —  THE  YOUNG  MAN  OF  INTELLIGENCE  ENTERING  UPON  AC- 
TIVE LIFE,  A  PICTURE  —  HE  NATURALLY  ALLIES  HIMSELF  TO  THE  TY- 
RANT AND  ROBBING  CLASSES  —  NO  HONESTY  IN  TRADE  —  TRADE 
P.ULES;  AND  ALL  ARE  CORRUPT  NO  CONSCIENCE  AMONG  TRAFFICK- 
ERS—LYING A  FINE  ART—  ALL  VILLAINS,  BIT  NONE  INDIVIDUALLY 
AT  FAULT  — THE  DETECTIVE  BELONGS  TO  THE  CORRUPT  GOVERNING 

CLASSES WEIGHING  HIM GREAT  THIEVES  —  "  THE  PURVEYORS  OF 

HELL" — THE  ETERNAL  TALKERS,  AND  WHAT  THEY  AMOUNT  TO  —  THE 

VSE  FOR  DI.II.i  TIVI.S  AN  INCIDENT;  "CATCHING  A  FLAT" THE 

DETECTIVE'S  VOCATION  FURTHER  CONSIDERED  —  HOW  THE  DETEC- 
TIVES PROTECT  SOCIETY  ILLUSTRATIVE  INCIDENTS  A  GREAT  DE- 

TECTI\K   !>!><  ItlBED  —  STRATAGEMS WHAT  THE  PHILOSOPHERS  SAT 

—  IS  THE   DETECTIVE  SYSTEM  FROM  ABOVE  OR  BELOW?       .  .  .    643 


1.  PORTRAIT  OF  GEO.  S.  McWATTERS, Frontispiece. 

2.  McWATTERS'  SPECTACLE  CASE To  face  page  33 

3.  "TEX  DOLLARS  A  MONTH," 79 

4.  McWATTERS  AND  THE  VETERAN 87 

5.  THE  BOND  OPERATOR, 103 

6.  THE  WAX  FINGER  DISCOVERED, .127 

7.  SEIZURE  OF  YOUNG  WORDEN  IN  BALTIMORE, 149 

8.  ATLANTIC  BEER  GARDEN.— PAYNE  AND  COLLINS'  RENDEZVOUS,           .  165 

9.  DESCENT  UPON  BLANCHARD  AND  THE  GAMBLERS 173 

10.  PROTECTING  THE  INNOCENT, 201 

11.  RESCUE  OF  HATTIE  NEWBERRY,          ........  215 

12.  RESTELL  AT  SING  SING, 221 

13.  THE  BOGUS  LOTTERY  OFFICE, 237 

14.  SURPRISING  THE  BOGUS  LOTTERY  DEALERS, 249 

15.  RECOVERING  THE  DIAMOND  RING, 267 

18.  THE  OLD  KNICKERBOCKER  IN  THE  DETECTIVE'S  OFFICE,      ...  279 

17.    DISCOVERING  THE  "SPIRITS"'  AT  NO.  89  STREET,  NEW  YORK,  291 

13.    "KETCH  HIM  AND  IIOULD  HIM  !"—  WILLIAMS'  ARREST,            ...  355 

19.  THE  WOLF  IN  SHEEP'S  CLOTHING, 383 

20.  BREAK-DOWN  ON  LITCHFIELD  HILL, 899 

21.  THE  CEREMONY  DEFEATED 409 

22.  DR.  HUDSON'S  STRATAGEM  WITH  THE  HIGHWAYMEN 433 

23.  THE  MISSOURI  LAWYER  OUTWITTED, 489 

24.  A  RASH  COURTSHIP, 621 

25.  FEARFUL  DREAM  OF  OLD  MR.  BROOKS 649 

20.    RESCUE  OF  NELLIE  WILSON,             677 

27.    RESCUE  OF  THE  WILL,            685 

23.    THE  TWO  SISTERS  COURTING  COL.  NOVENA  IN  HIS  LIBRARY,     .       .  695 

20.    THE  "HONEST"  COUNTERFEIT  MONEY  SPECULATOR 639 

30.    CATCHING  A  FLAT, 6o9 


PUBLISHERS'  INTRODUCTION, 


DEEMING  that  the  public  would  be  deeply  interested  to  know, 
indeed  had  a  right  to  know,  something  more  of  the  author  of  the 
following  work  than  gleams  through  the  series  of  entertaining, 
instructive,  an  1  in  many  respects  unparalleled  articles  which  con- 
stitute "  Knots  Untied,"  we  applied  to  him  for  his  Autobiography, 
in  de-tails  covering  other  portions  of,  and  facts  in  his  life,  than  are 
revealed  in  the  wonderful  experiences  of  his  professional  career,  as 
brought  to  light  in  these  articles. 

But  we  were  met  by  a  reply,  characteristic  of  most  men  of  deeds 
rather  than  of  words,  that  it  would  be  wholly  against  his  taste  to 
furnish  his  own  personal  history :  he  was  in  '  no  wise  desirous  to 
vaunt  himself,'  he  said;  'he  had  not  sought,'  he  continued,  by  the 
articles  in  question,  to  illustrate  himself,  or  to  play  the  part  of  a 
hero  in  any  measure,  but  merely  to  contribute  to  the  current  litera- 
ture and  the  history  of  the  times  a  narration  of  sundry  interesting 
fact?,  which,  in  their  hid  Jen  and  secret  nature,  are  usually  withheld 
from  the  general  public. 

Throughout  this  book  Officer  Me  Waiters  has  shown  the  modesty 
of  a  retiring  and  unassuming  man;  making  no  further  allusion  to 
himself,  and  his  deeds  and  experiences,  than  necessary  to  sustain 
the  thread  of  the  narratives.  lie  desired  that  the  book  should  stand 
upon  its  own  merit.-',  without  any  adventitious  aid  from  the  high 
indorsements  of  his  own  daily  life  and  personal  character,  such  as 
will  be  found  in  what  follows.  He  would,  so  far  as  the  book  is  con- 
<jerned,  be  judged  as  an  officer  and  an  author,  rather  than  by  the 
merits  of  his  own  private  life,  be  they  great  or  small.  In  this  he 
evinced  a  commendable  pride  and  a  good  sense  which  we  could  not 
question. 

Nevertheless  we  considered  it  fitting  that  we  add  to  the  book  such 
facts  as  we  might  possess  ourselves  of  regarding  the  career  of  a 
man  whose  life  has  been  given,  in  so  great  part,  to  deeds  of  iroo'l, 
heartfu'.ly  and  freely  done,  and  to  humanitary  reforms,  as  has  Officer 
McWatters*. 


PUBLISHERS    INTRODUCTION.  XJX 

For  it  is  not  strictly  and  merely  in  the  capacity  of  a  successful 
officer  or  as  a  spirited  and  graceful  writer  that  "  the  Literary  Police- 
man" (as  the  journals  of  New  York  are  wont  to  distinguish  Officer 
Me  Waiters)  has  done  his  best  works.  Officer  Me  Walters  is,  par 
excellence,  a  humanitarian,  a  gentleman  of  the  widest  tolerance  and 
liberality  of  opinions,  as  is  evinced  in  various  parts  of  the  narra- 
tives, which  exhibit  nothing  of  that  cruel  and  tyrannical  spirit  so 
common  to  men  who  have  much  to  do  with  the  criminal  classes.  It 
is  rather  by  kiudness  than  severity  that  he  would  deal  with  the 
erring. 

Officer  Me  Walters,  being  unwilling  to  supply  his  Autobiography  ; 
and  being  ourselves  without  sufficient  no'es  to  furnish  the  public 
with  the  biographical  comments  which  we  considered  so  desirable 
concerning  him,  we  intrusted  the  matter  of  writing  his  personal  his- 
tory to  a  well  known  literary  gentleman  of  New  York,  with  direc- 
tions to  him  to  put  into  form  whatever  he  could  authentically  gather 
of  a  nature  interesting  to  the  reading  public  in  general,  concerning 
the  author  of  "  Knots  Untied." 

How  well  he  fulfilled  his  arduous  duty,  under  the  circumstance?, 
the  reader  of  the  Biographical  Notes  which  follow  will  judge  for 
himself.  But  we  regard  it  as  not  improper  for  us  to  say,  that  in 
our  opinion  the  Biographical  Notes  will  be  found  a  very  interesting 
addition  to  "  Knots  Untied,"  not  only  by  the  insight  they  give  the 
reader  iuto  the  career  of  a  man,  who,  filling  an  unpretentious  fphere 
in  life,  so  far  as  technical  vocations  are  concerned,  has  made  himself 
illustrious  by  deeds  of  good  will ;  but  also  by  their  style,  peculiar 
in  some  respects,  and  here  and  there  marked  by  the  utterance  of 
brave  thoughts  regarding  mutters  of  so  much  vital  interest  to  the 
laboring  classes,  the  poor,  who  are  the  "  chief  con-tituenoy,"  in  a 
humanitary  sense,  of  Officer  McWatters  him  elf, — by  his  benefac- 
tions to  whom  he  has  mostly  won  that  high  popular  esteem,  which 
is  so  well  recorded  in  the  Biographical  Notes. 

It  is  due  to  the  writer  of  the  Biographical  Notes  to  remark  here 
that,  in  view  of  the  very  short  period  that  was  given  him  in  which 
to  prepare  the  same,  he  accomplished  in  their  production,  a  task 
which  would  be  notable,  even  without  consideration  of  the  peculfer 
difficulties  which  lay  in  his  path.  It  ig  not  an  easy  thing  to  search 
hurriedly  through  a  thousand  newspapers,  for  example,  for  mate-r 


XX  PUBLISHERS'  INTRODUCTION. 

rial,  and  select  and  arrange  the  same  acceptably.  But  upon  this 
point,  perhaps,  we  cannot  do  better  than  to  append  to  this,  our  Intro- 
duction, a  copy  of  the  letter  which  accompanied  the  Biographic al 
Notes,  from  the  gentleman  in  question. 

THE  PUBLISHERS. 

NEW  YORK,  February  10,  1871. 
To  THE  PUBLISHERS  OF  "  KNOTS  UNTIED  "  : 

GENTLEMEN  :  Concerning  the  biography  of  Officer  McWatters,  which 
you  requested  me  to  supply,  I  am  compelled  to  say  that  I  am  unable  to 
give  you  anything  in  the  "  form  and  order"  which  a  biography  should  — 
that  it  may  be  whole  and  symmetrical  —  present  to  the  reader.  Officer 
McWatters  belongs  to  the  class  of  men  who  make  history,  —  the  actors 
and  workers  in  life,  — rather  than  those  who  merely  write  history,  or  who 
BO  order  their  lives,  and  keep  diaries,  that  their  biographers  can  readily  fol- 
low them  from  the  cradle  to  the  tomb. 

Officer  McWatters  is  widely  known  in  N(ew  York.  Everybody  recog- 
nizes him  as  an  active  philanthropist,  of  the  practical  school ;  yet  but  a 
few  of  all,  if  any,  if  called  upon  as  I  am,  to  make  detail  of  the  deeds  of  his 
life,  could  place  his  hand  upon  this  or  that,  and  say,  "  This  is  McWatters' 
work,"  without  some  investigation ;  and  for  the  most  part  of  what  I  have 
collected,  I  have  been  obliged  to  search  the  public  journals. 

I  am  indebted,  also,  for  sundry  facts,  to  several  of  Officer  McWatters's 
personal  acquaintances,  and  have  also  drawn  upon  my  own  memory  some- 
what for  facts  which  have  come  to  my  knowledge  during  an  acquaintance- 
ship with  Mr.  McWatters  of  about  sixteen  years.  But  I  have  not  attempted 
to  put  things  in  their  order,  to  any  great  extent ;  for  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  a  "course  of  events"  (the  "Declaration  of  Independence "  to  the 
contrary  notwithstanding).  Events  are  individuate,  each  a  completion  in 
itself,  and  the  great  deeds  of  any  man's  life  are  usually  individual,  and 
not  dependently  connected  with  each  other. 

But  in  the  accompanying  papers  I  send  you  such  a  hurriedly  executed 
biographical  sketch  of  Officer  McWatters  as  the  short  time  you  have 
allowed  me  would  permit,  trusting  that,  notwithstai.  Jing  all  its  literary  im- 
perfections, it  will  not,  so  far  as  it  goes,  be  found  wanting  in  due  appreci- 
ation, at  leaM,  of  the  uoulc  career  of  a  faithful,  true  man,  who  has  done,  earn- 
estly and  with  loving  spirit,  his  share  of  good  deeds;  and  who  merits  both  the 
respect  and  affection  of  all  whe  prize  what  is  gentle,  brave,  honorable,  and 
honest  in  life. 

Very  respectfully  yours, 

S. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTES. 


OFFICER   GEORGE   S.  McWATTERS. 

THE  subject  of  these  Notes  is  now  about  fifty-seven 
years  of  age,  —  a  hale,  hearty,  rosy-faced  man,  agile,  lithe 
of  limb,  in  the  full  vigor  of  life  ;  and  were  it  not  for  his 
gray  beard  and  hair,  might  easily  pass  as  not  over  forty 
years  of  age.  Always  temperate  in  his  habits,  he  has, 
notwithstanding  the  many  hardships  of  his  life,  some  of 
which  would  have  broken  down  less  vigorous  constitutions 
than  his,  preserved  to  himself  the  blessing  of  health  and 
the  hues  of  youth  in  a  remarkable  degree.  He  is  of  a 
medium  height,  with  a  countenance  not  only  always  fresh 
and  rosy,  but  beaming  with  benevolence  —  "a  good  face 
to  look  into,"  to  quote  Carlyle.  Judging  from  Officer 
McWatters'  physiognomy,  and  from  his  style  of  speech,  it 
would  be  difficult  to  declare  him  to  be  either  Scotch,  Irish, 
or  English :  he  might,  by  many,  be  considered  an  Ameri- 
can by  birth  and  education,  especially  if  he  were  to  assume 
the  name  "  Hudson,"  "  Clark,"  or  "  Hyde,"  for  example. 

WHERE  HE  WAS  BORN  AND  REARED. 

It  matters  not  in  what  country  a  man  may  have  been 
born,  whatever  the  institutions  under  which  one  is  reared 

21. 


22  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

may  have  to  do  with  the  formation  of  his  character;  and  as 
to  Officer  Me  Walters'  place  of  birth,  we  are  not  absolutely 
certain,  but  believe  he  was  born  in  Kilmarnock,  Scotland, 
and  was  taken  thence  by  his  parents,  at  an  early  age,  to 
the  north  of  Ireland,  where  he  was  reared. 

It  is  easy  to  conjecture  that  a  man  like  Mr.  McWatters 
must  have  had  a  more  or  less  ambitious  boyhood  ;  and  his 
friends  have  sometimes  heard  him  recite  the  wakeful 
dreams  he  as  a  youth  indulged  in.  of  "  the  beautiful  land 
beyond  the  western  waters."  Officer  McWatters  was  evi- 
dently born  out  of  place,  for  lie  is  intensely  democratic 
in  his  sentiments,  more  so  than  most  native-born  Ameri- 
cans, and  manifests  an  appreciation  of  free  institutions, 
which  not  unfrequently  rises  to  the  sublime,  .or  inten- 
sifies to  the  pathetic.  It  is  doubtful,  for  example,  that 
during  the  late  civil  war  there  could  have  been  found 
in  all  the  land  a  man  who  took  a  deeper,  soul-felt  in- 
terest in  the  integrity  of  the  republic  than  he.  But  of 
this  farther  on. 

Mr.  McWatters  after  receiving  a  very  respectable  educa- 
tion in  the  schools  of  the  north  of  Ireland,  became  a 
mechanic  ;  but  the  monotonous  life  of  a  working-man  there, 
was  ill  suited  to  an  ardent  nature  like  his ;  and  while  yet 
a  young  man,  full  of  the  spirit  of  adventure,  he  left  his 
Irish  home,  and  proceeded  to  London,  where  he  pursued 
his  trade,  and  eventually  married  a  most  estimable  lady, 
who  has  ever  been  to  him  a  helpmeet  indeed.  By  this 
lady  Mr.  McWatters  is  the  father  of  a  very  interesting 
family  of  some  six  children,  who  have  been  carefully 
reared,  and  have  enjoyed  excellent  opportunities  of  educa-' 
tion.  Miss  Charlotte,  the  eldest  daughter  of  Mr.  McWat- 
ters, a  lady  of  refined  culture,  as  well  as  extreme  personal 
graces  and  attractions,  was  married  in  October,  1860,  to 
Signor  Errani,  then  the  distinguished  tenor  of  the  Acade- 
my of  Music,  and  who  not  only  occupies  a  first  class  posi- 
tion in  his  profession,  but  is  a  gentleman  of  marked  iutel 
lectuality  and  extensive  literary  acquirements. 


BIOGRAPHICAL    NOTES.  23 

London  is  a  world-school  in  itself.  What  a  man  cannot 
learn  there  of  arts,  sciences,  and  literature  and  of  all  the- 
various  phases  of  humanity,  from  the  worse  or  lower  than 
the  barbarian,  up  to  the  highest  type  which  "Natural  Selec- 
tion," according  to  the  Darwinian  theory,  has  developed, 
he  would  be  unable  to  learn  in  any  other  spot  of  Earth. 
Though  young  yet  mature,  and  with  an  active,  inquiring 
brain  it  cannot  be  supposed  that  Mr.  McWatters  allowed 
the  grand  opportunity  for  observation  which  life  in  London 
gave  him,  to  pass  profitlcssly.  Going  from  among  the  stiff 
Presbyterian  forms  of  life  in  the  north  of  Ireland,  which 
must  have  been  galling  to  a  spirit  like  his,  directly  to  Lon- 
don with  all  its  social  freedoms,  the  change  was  a  great 
one  for  him,  and  must  have  piqued  his  intelligence  to  the 
keenest  examination  and  scrutiny  of  his  new  surroundings. 

In  London  dwell  the  best  as  well  as  the  worst  people  to 
be  found  in  the  world.  The  advanced  spirits,  philosophers 
and  reformers,  whom  the  civilization  of  other  European 
countries  is  not  sufficiently  developed  to  tolerate,  seek  the 
asylum  of  England  and  make  London  their  home  ;  so,  too, 
of  the  criminal  classes.  The  most  murderous  thieves  and 
burglars  find  in  London  a  hiding  place  and  theatre  of  ope- 
rations. London,  which  was  too  large  even  fifty  years  ago, 
and  was  then  emphatically  one  of  those  accursed  "vampires 
upon  the  public  weal,"  as  Jefferson  declared  all  cities  to  be, 
has  grown  marvelously  since,  and  continues  to  grow  to  the 
wonder  of  all  political  economists,  who  are  at  a  loss  to 
determine  wherefore.  But  such  is  the  fact,  and  into  this 
great  seething  sea  of  human  life  was  it  that  Mr.  McWatters 
] (lunged  in  his  first  essay  at  "  studying  human  nature"  away 
from  the  narrow  field  of  his  boyhood's  observations.  Who- 
ever resides  in  London,  and  acquaints  himself  with  what  is 
about  him,  and  mingles  in  the  city's  strifes,  and  comes  out 
unscathed  need  not  fear  to  trust  himself  anywhere  in  the 
rorld. 


24  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

MIGRATES  TO  THE  UNITED  STATES. 

Mr.  McWatters,  after  sojourning  in  London  for  a  while 
after  his  marriage,  betook  himself,  with  his  estimable  wile, 
to  this  Land  of  Promise.  In  London  he  had  made  the  ac- 
quaintance of  many  of  the  leading  men  most  interested  in 
questions  bearing  upon  sociology,  humane  reforms,  and 
philanthropic  efforts  at  the  amelioration  of  the  condition  of 
the  laboring  classes.  His  warm  heart  became  greatly 
aroused  in  seconding  the  needed  reforms  which  his  keen 
intellect  demonstrated  were  urgent  for  the  good  of  not 
only  the  laborers  of  London,  but  of  the  working  cla 
everywhere  ;  and  he  brought  with  him  to  this  country  what 
may  properly  be  termed  an  intense  general  anti-slavery 
spirit,  embracing  in  its  sympathy  not  only  chattel-slaves, 
but  wages-slaves,  of  every  kind  and  color.  And  this  may 
properly  be  said  to  be  the  chief  characteristic  of  Mr. 
McWatters ;  and  that  he  has  made  this  felt  for  the  good  of 
his  fellow-men  as  effectively,  perhaps,  as  any  other  man 
living,  considering  his  means  and  the  sphere  in  which  he 
has  operated,  cannot  be  questioned  by  any  one  who  has 
attentively  read  our  city  journals  of  the  last  ten  years 
especially. 

The  writer  has  gathered,  and  has  before  him,  not  less 
than  two  hundred  and  twenty  different  extracts  from  the 
papers  of  New  York,  in  all  of  which  Mr.  McWatters  is 
complimentarily  spoken  of  in  reference  to  his  benevolent 
action,  his  humanitary  deeds  to  the  poor  and  suffering,  or 
his  active  cooperation  with  some  great  public  charity. 

Mr.  McWatters,  though  gifted  with  that  untiring  indus- 
try, clear,  native  intelligence,  and  wide  understanding  of 
men  and  things,  which  conquer  fortunes  in  money  for  their 
possessors,  has  never  achieved  fortune  for  himself,  so  busily 
has  he  been  engaged  in  deeds  of  benevolence.  At  the  ex- 
pense of  his  heart  he  could  never  afford  the  time  to  make 
a  fortune.  The  like  fact  has  marked  the  history  of  many 
other  philanthropic  spirits,  and  should  redound  as  much  to 


BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTES.  25 

their  credit,  as  does  the  same  to  that  of  certain  great 
scholars  whose  devotion  to  science  would  never  allow  them 
the  opportunity  for  turning  their  great  talents  to  money- 
making.  It  is  reported  of  Professor  Agassiz,  the  great 
scientist,  that  being  asked  by  some  admirer  of  his  vast 
talents  (and  who  knew  that  he  rejoiced  not  in  a  large  share 
of  "  this  world's  goods  "  in  the  shape  of  money),  why  he 
did  not  turn  his  attention  to  money-making,  and  get  rich, 
as  he  would  be  sure  to  do  soon,  he  replied,  "  I  cannot  afford 
the  time." 

SETTLES  IN  PHILADELPHIA,  AND  STUDIES  LAW. 

Soon  after  arriving  in  this  country,  Mr.  McWatters  made 
his  way  to  Philadelphia,  where  he  took  up  his  residence. 
After  various  vicissitudes,  he  gave  his  time  (1848-9)  for  a 
year  to  the  study  of  the  law,  under  William  R.  Dickerson, 
Esq.,  a  Philadelphia  lawyer  of  large  practice,  but  a  man  of 
that  stamp  of  character  which  made  him  of  peculiar  value 
as  a  collector  of  debts,  especially  in  doubtful  cases.  He 
was  rigid,  exacting,  and  uncompromising  with  debtors. 
Mr.  McWatters  reveled  in  the  study  of  Blackstone,  Kent, 
Chitty,  etc.,  and  looked  forward  with  eagerness  to  the  time 
when  he  should  be  prepared  to  enter  the  "  glorious  lists  " 
of  the  Knights  of  the  Bar. 

A  HEART  TOO  SOFT  FOR  A  LAWYER. 

But  a  change  was  to  come  suddenly  over  the  spirit  of 
his  beautiful  dream,  and  which  he  foresaw  not.  Eventually 
Mr.  Dickerson  intrusted  Mr.  McWatters  with  sundry  collec- 
tions. He  found  this  branch  of  the  business  unpleasant  in 
its  performance.  His  soft,  heart  ached  for  the  poor  debtors. 
He  could  not  nerve  himself  to  act  the  part  of  an  extor- 
tioner. When  a  poor  widow,  or  orphans,  or  some  dis- 
couraged man  just  arisen  from  a  sick  bed,  and  in  arrears 
for  rent,  etc.,  shed  tears  in  reciting  his  sufferings,  Mr. 
McWatters  forgot  the  lawyer  in  the  humanitarian. 

Finally,  one  day  he  Avas  sent  to  collect  a  debt  of  a  poor 

2 


26  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

shoemaker,  who  was  barely  able  to  get  bread  enough  for 
himself  and  his  family  to  subsist  upon.  The  laws  of  Penn- 
sylvania exempt  from  civil  process  certain  portions  of  a 
housekeeper's  furniture:  but  when  contracting  for  rent, 
the  housekeeper  may  waive  his  right  to  such  exemption,  if 
he  likes.  The  |>oor  shoemaker  in  question  had  done 
but  in  order  to  distrain  his  goods  for  the  debt,  —  in  other 
words,  to  take  away  his  very  bed,  and  other  necessary 
furniture,  —  it  was  incumbent  upon  the  officer  to  get 
'peaceable  admittance  into  the  house ;  and  that  he  might  do 
so  in  this  case,  Mr.  McWatters  was  sent  forward  to  effect 
entrance  as  a  person  seeking  the  shoemaker's  service, 
while  the  constable  had  his  post  at  a  corner  near  by,  and  was 
to  rush  in  when  the  door  should  be  opened. 

The  whole  thing  was  sickening  to  Mr.  McWatters.  He 
went,  however,  as  ordered,  and  rapped  at  the  door,  the 
officer  watching  at  his  post.  For  a  reason  most  creditable 
to  Mr.  McWatters'  heart,  but  which  may  be  left  here  only 
to  the  reader's  surmise,  that  door,  which  was  unlocked 
when  he  rapped,  became  duly  locked,  without  the  officer's 
being  any  the  wiser  as  to  liow  it  was  done,  and  entrance 
Y  :i>  not  then  effected. 

This  was  tlie  frowning  grief  to  Mr.  McWatters'  disgust 
with  the  practice  of  the  law,  and  he  quitted  the  further 
study  of  the  "  science  "  thereof,  feeling  that  he  could  never 
harden  his  heart  to  the  practice  of  a  profession  which  often 
requires  much  of  unscrupulousness  of  conscience  and  such 
mercilessness.  But  his  year's  study  became  of  great  ser- 
vice to  him  later  in  life,  when  called  upon  as  a  detective 
officer,  or  member  of  the  Metropolitan  Police  force,  in 
sudden  emergencies,  when  a  knowledge  of  the  law  in  this 
or  that  particular  was  necessary  for  judicious  action. 

DEPARTS  FOR  CALIFORNIA. 

About  this  time  the  great  exodus  from  the  United  States, 
in  fact  from  all  parts  of  the  world,  to  the  California  gold 
diggings,  began.  Mr.  McWatters  arranged  his  affairs, 


BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTES.  27 

and  migrated,  with  tens  of  thousands  more,  to  the  new  El 
Dorado.  But  he  was  not  happy  there.  The  mad  strife  for 
gold  overwhelmed  all  other  things  there.  Men,  in  general, 
lost  whatever  of  conscience  they  carried  there,  and  the 
whole  population  was  plunged  in  vices  or  crimes  of  one 
kind  or  another.  Mr.  McWatters  found  that  he  was  not 
constituted  to  engage  in  such  reckless  warfare  at  the  ex- 
ponse  of  all  that  was  manly  and  good,  and  after  nine 
months  came  to  New  York,  which  has  since  been  hia  home. 

BACK  IN  NEW  YORK. 

Soon  after  his  return  from  California,  Mr.  McWatters 
became  associated  with  Laura  Keene,  the  actress,  as  her 
agent  in  New  York  and  Buffalo ;  and  it  was  while  he  was 
at  this  time  associated  with  her  (for  he  was  connected  with 
her  in  subsequent  engagements)  that  Mr.  McWatters  was 
first  called  upon  to  enact  the  part  of  a  detective. 

To  his  success  in  this  instance  referred  to  may  be  attrib- 
uted the  series  of  wonderful  articles  which  constitute  "Knots 
Untied ; "  for  had  he  failed  on  that  occasion,  it  is  probable 
that  he  would  never  have  had  confidence  to  attempt  again 
the  critical  role  which  the  successful  detective  must  neces- 
sarily play; and  the  literature  of  the  age  would  therefore 
have  lacked  the  charming  contribution  of  the  mysterious 
revelations  of  hidden  life  which  Mr.  McWatters  has  made 
in  these  spirited  tales. 

It  would  be  pleasing  to  the  writer  to  make  allusion  here 
in  detail,  somewhat,  to  that  incident,  and  other  affairs  in 
which  Mr.  McWatters  became  engaged,  and  which  have 
come  to  the  writer's  knowledge,  but  which  Mr.  McWatters 
has  not  seen  fit  to  reveal  in  "  Knots  Untied ;  "  but  it  would, 
perhaps,  be  an  unwarranted  act  to  do  so.  He  has  conceived, 
the  design  of  the  book  to  suit  his  own  tastes,  of  course; 
and  while  he  has  in  these  articles  struck  a  chord  which 
cannot  but  awaken  in  the  popular  mind  a  rich  responsive 
appreciation  of  his  book,  yet  he  cannot  expect  to  suit 
everybody's  taste  in  every  respect. 


28  KNOTS  UNTIED. 


MR.    McWATTERS   AS   AGENT   AND   LECTURER. 

It  is  not  attempted  here  to  give  the  current  of  Mr. 
McWatters'  life  as  it  occurred,  in  successive  steps;  indeed, 
the  writer  is  not  sure  in  respect  to  dates  in  all  cases,  pos- 
sessing only  the  facts  in  substance.  But  not  long  after 
Mr.  McWatters'  first  engagement  with  Miss  Keene  was  de- 
termined, he  became  the  exhibiting  lecturer  accompanying 
a  grand  panorama  of  a  "  Journey  to  California  by  Water 
and  back  by  Land,"  and  it  is  not  difficult  to  conceive  that 
with  his  experiences  as  a  traveller,  his  residence  in  Cali- 
fornia, and  his  gifts  as  a  public  speaker,  he  made  the 
"  Journey "  a  matter  of  great  delight  to  his  audiences. 
The  panorama  was  exhibited  in  the  chief  cities  and  towns 
of  various  States. 

Subsequently  Mr.  McWatters  became  the  agent  of  the 
late  Countess  of  Lansfeldt,  more  generally  known  as  Lola 
Montez,  which  he  continued  to  be  until  nearly  the  time  of 
her  death.  Much  has  been  written  about  Lola,  —  much 
which  is  false,  as  well  as  much  which  is  true.  She  was,  in 
some  respects,  particularly  social  ones,  a  great  woman, 
but  had  her  weaknesses,  like  other  mortals.  Lola,  like 
many,  was  inclined  to  occasional  religious  fits ;  and  this 
fact  suggests  an  incident  worthy  of  recital,  since  it  illus- 
trates something  of  the  life  of  persons  of  much  public- 
note. 

ANECDOTE  OF  LOLA  MONTEZ  AND  LAURA  KEENE. 

Reference  has  been  made  to  Mr.  McWatters'  association 
with  Laura  Keene.  At  a  certain  time  Lola  Montez  became 
very  religious,  and  continued  so  for  a  while.  During  her 
pious  enthusiasm  she  determined  to  sell  her  theatrical 
wardrobe,  consisting  of  splendid  dresses,  and  dress-patterns 
(unmade-up),  stage  jewelry,  of  magnificent  description,  etc. 
She  requested  Mr.  McWatters- to  offer  them  for  sale  to 
Laura  Keene.  He  took  some  of  the  "  goods "  to  Laura, 
whose  -purse  at  that  time  was  rather  limited.  She  could 


BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTES.  29 

not  gratify  herself  with  the  purchase  of  all,  but  selected  a 
very  heavy,  rich  dress-pattern,  for  which  she  paid  in  part, 
but  on  which  Mr.  McWatters  trusted  her  for  the  sum  of 
twenty-five  dollars.  When  Mr.  McWatters  reported  the 
sale  to  Lola,  she  was  angry  that  he  had  trusted  Laura. 

Miss  Keene  was  then  running  the  Olympic  Theatre. 
John  Duff  was  her  manager,  together  with  Leutz,  her  hus- 
band. Laura  wished  to  surprise  them  with  the  story  of 
her  new  purchase,  and  had  sent  it  off  privately  to  have  it 
made  up  gorgeously.  When  she  heard  that  Lola  was  angry 
at  Mr.  McWatters'  having  trusted  her,  she  sent  for  the 
dress ;  found  it  finished ;  declared  that  she  had  already  paid 
for  it  all  it  was  worth,  but  sent  Mr.  McWatters  to  some  mer- 
chant's to  have  the  goods  appraised ;  whereupon  he  found 
that  it  was  not  dress-goods  at  all,  but  stuff  for  covering 
furniture,  —  known  by  all  ladies  now  as  "  rep."  Mr.  McWat- 
ters reporting  the  discovery,  Laura  became  angry,  and  sent 
the  dress,  with  all  its  costly  trimmings  on,  to  Lola.  Lola  got 
angry  again  in  turn,  and  tore  off  the  trimming  (which  she 
sent  back  to  Laura),  and  burned  up  the  dress. 

MR.    McWATTERS   SOLVING    SOCIAL   PROBLEMS. 

Mr.  McWatters  was  busily  occupied  in  connection  with 
theatres,  etc.,  for  a  long  period,  more  or  less  interspersed 
with  his  enterprises  as  a  detective  officer,  and  his  busy  life 
was  richly  freighted  with  interesting  experiences. 

Mr.  McWatters  has  ever  been  greatly  interested  in  so- 
cial problems,  having  in  view  the  emancipation  of  the 
laboring  classes  from  their  more  grievous  burdens,  and 
belongs,  in  his  sympathies,  to  that  class  of  humanitarians 
who  see  in  Association  something  like  a  realization  of  the 
teachings  of  the  Founder  of  Christianism  ;  and  at  one  time 
was  practically  engaged  with  several  other  philanthropists, 
in  an  experiment  partaking  considerably  of  Cooperation, 
but  which  unhappily  failed  of  its  desired  success  for  want 
of  more,  and  better  disciplined  cooperatives  therein.  It 
would  be  interesting  to  the  reader,  but  out  of  place  here 


30  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

to    present   something  .particular   of   the   history   of  the 
experiment  alluded  to. 

OUR  SUBJECT  AND  THE  PUBLIC  PRESS. 

The  writer  has  before  him,  clipped  from  the  public  jour- 
nals, the  record  of  remarkable  incidents  enough  in  Mr. 
McWatters'  life  to  fill  a  small  volume  of  themselves,  only 
a  few  of  which  can  properly  be  alluded  to  in  a  cursory 
biography.  Such  men's  lives  are  often  illustrated  by 
"  hairbreadth  escapes/'  or  signal  good  fortune  under  try- 
ing circumstances ;  but  it  is  doubtful  that  a  more  singular 
and  happily  ending  affair  has  ever  occurred  in  any  man's 
experience  than  one,  the  record  of  which  was  made  at  the 
time,  in  the  New  York  Dispatch  of  June  20,  1858,  and 
which  is  here  copied  in  full. 

"PUSILLANIMOUS  HIGHWAYMEN.  —  Two  KNIGHTS  OF  THE 
ROAD  FRIGHTENED  BY  A  SPECTACLE  CASK.  —  At  a  few  min- 
utes to  one  o'clock  yesterday  morning,  Mr.  G.  S.  M<  Wat- 
ters,  late  door-keeper  at  Laura  Keene's  theatre,  was  jmssing 
through  Bleccker  Street,  near  Mott.  Suddenly  two  men 
sprang  at  him  from  behind  a  tree,  one  catching  him  around 
the  waist,  and  the  other  making  a  grab  at  his  throat. 
With  a  quick  and  powerful  effort,  turning  himself  around, 
he  managed  to  fling  from  him  the  one  who  had  hold  of  his 
waist ;  and  quickly  taking  from  his  side  coat-pocket  a  silver 
spectacle  case,  he  drew  his  hand  back  with  great  emphasis, 
cautioning  the  other  fellow  not  to  advance  a  step,  or  he 
would  stab  him  to  the  heart.  The  second  fellow  evidently 
mistook  the  glistening  of  the  spectacle  case  in  t!ie  moon- 
light as  the  gleaming  of  steel,  for  in  double-quick  time 
he  took  to  his  heels,  followed  by  his  companion,  whoso 
fall,  as  the  result  proved,  had  not  detracted  from  his  nimble- 
footedness.  Mr.  McWatters  let  the  fellows  run,  very  pru- 
dently avoiding  imposing  a  task  upon  his  lungs  by  railing 
for  the  police.  It  is  thought  they  followed  him  for  his 
money,  of  which  he  had  a  considerable  amount  about 
him/'* 


BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTES.  33 

MR.  McWATTERS   ENTERS   THE  METROPOLITAN   POLICE  FORCE. 

Passing  over  a  period  in  Mr.  Me  Walters'  busy  life,  check- 
ered with  incidents  and  exploits  of  a  marvellous  kind  in  his 
career  as  a  private  detective,  as  well  as  much  that  is  inter- 
esting of  his  active  participation  in  many  measures  of  a 
politico-reformatory  and  socialistic  nature,  we  find  that  Mr. 
McWatters  entered  the  Metropolitan  Police  force  in  1858, 
wherein  he  distinguished  himself,  for  the  period  of  twelve 
years,  up  to  October  17, 1870,  when  he  resigned  his  post, — 
not  only  as  a  most  effective  and  reliable  officer  in  routine 
duties,  but  also  by  many  suggestions  and  plans  of  enlar- 
ging the  utility  of  the  force  to  the  community  in  general. 
For  instance,  we  find  in  the  New  York  World,  of  date 
November  22, 1860, an  article  under  the  head  "Information 
to  Railroad  and  Steamboat  Passengers,"  which  dilutes,  to 
some  considerable  extent,  and  most  complimentarily,  upon 
the  beneficent  results  to  the  public  of  the  operations  of  a 
detachment  of  the  police  force,  "  called  the  Railroad  and 
Steamboat  Squad,"  by  which  travellers  visiting  New  York, 
and  passing  through,  were  saved  from  the  impositions  and 
robberies  of  ticket  swindlers,  hotel  runners,  unprincipled 
boarding-house  keepers,  etc.,  by  encountering  the  travellers 
before  they  leave  the  cars  and  steamboats,  and  giving  them 
all  requisite  information  in  regard  both  to  the  swindlers, 
and  how  best,  most  safely  and  economically  to  conduct 
their  sojourn  in  the  city.  The  World's  article  concludes 
with  stating,  that  "  this  plan  originated  with  Officer  McWat- 
ters,  who,  we  know,  was  for  a  long  time  an  efficient,  and 
one  of  the  most  popular  officers  attached  to  this  section  of 
the  force." 

How  well  Officer  McWatters  performed  his  individual 
duties  in  connection  with  this  squad,  might  be  illustrated 
by  the  quotation  of  an  article  entitled  "  Personal,"  in  the 
Daily  Tribune  of  July  7,  1860,  which  is  most  highly  com- 
plimentary of  Officer  McWatters,  but  is  too  long  to  be 
incorporated  here. 


34  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

Mr.  McWatters'  onerous  vocation  as  a  policeman  did  not 
forbid-  his  finding  time  for  earnest  participation  in  many 
matters  not  pertaining  to  his  special  duties  as  an  officer. 
Indeed,  it  would  seem  that,  with  all  his  labors,  he  found 
more  time  to  devote  to  good  causes  outside  of  his  police 
duties  than  many  men  of  leisure  and  benevolent  spirit 
think  themselves  able  to  bestow.  It  is  said  that  none  find 
so  little  leisure  time  to  do  anything  as'the  wholly  indolent 
and  unoccupied,  and  the  more  a  man  has  to  do  of  daily  labor, 
the  more  time  can  he  find  to  attend  to  extra  calls  upon  his 
services.  Officer  McWatters  seems  to  have  practicalized 
this  "  doctrine,"  for,  judging  from  the  several  hundred 
extracts  before  us,  taken  from  the  New  York  journals  for 
the  last  ten  years,  one  would  be  led  to  think  that  Officer 
McWatters  possessed  the  attribute  or  faculty  of  ubiquity, 
for  we  find  him  "  here,  and  there,  and  everywhere  "  in  the 
city,  and  without  it,  in  attendance  upon  reform  meetings ; 
or  advocating  humanitary  measures  from  the  rostrum,  for 
Officer  McWatters  is  a  forcible  public  speaker.  The  suffer- 
ing and  starving  people  of  Kansas  (1861)  we  find  elicited 
his  warm  sympathies  and  active  exertions  in  their  behalf, 
expressed  by  the  practical  mode  of  raising  contributions  for 
their  aid.  In  the  Evening  Post  of  October  2,  1861,  we  find 
allusion  to  Officer  McWatters  as  the  Secretary  of  the  Patri- 
otic Association  of  Metropolitan  Police  (of  which,  in  con- 
junction with  the  late  Inspector  Carpenter,  if  the  writer  is 
not  mistaken,  Officer  McWatters  was  the  originator),  which 
was  organized  to  afford  support  to  the  families  of  policemen 
who  joined  the  Metropolitan  Brigade  in  the  war  for  the 

Union. 

PERSONAL  INCIDENTS. 

Chancing  to  turn  at  this  moment  to  the  New  York  World 
of  March  14,  1861,  the  writer  finds  that  on  the  day  before 
Officer  McWatters  "  immersed  "  himself  in  the  North  River, 
plunging  in  to  rescue  a  six-years-old  boy,  who  had  fallen  off 
the  dock.  In  the  Sunday  Mercury  of  April  7,  five  weeks 


BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTES.  35 

• 

after  the  occurrence  last  mentioned,  we  find  Officer  Mc- 
Watters aiding  in  the  rescue  of  another  boy  from  a  watery 
grave; -and  in  the  Daily  Tribune  of  March  11,  1861,  ap- 
pears the  statement  of  still  another  rescue  from  drowning 
by  Officer  McWatters,  this  time  of  a  man,  one  Captain  Wil- 
liam Vanname.  We  might  extend,  indefinitely,  the  list  of 
kindred  good  deeds  by  Officer  McWatters,  as  gathered  from 
the  public  journals  ;  but  these  will  serve  to  show  the  fact 
that  he  was  always  to  be  found  in  the  line  of  his  duty. 
He  was  frequently  saving  life,  or  performing  other  noble 
acts.  -  But  we  do  not  intend  to  dwell  in  detail  upon  the 
professional  life  of  Officer  McWatters  in  his  connection 
with  the  Metropolitan  Police.  It  is  enough,  perhaps,  to- 
say  in  general  terms,  that  he  fulfilled  his  duties  nobly  well ; 
that  from  Superintendent  Kennedy,  under  whom,  for  the 
most  part,  he  served,  his  official  career  received  the  very 
warmest  praise,  and  that  the  public  press  made  frequent 
complimentary  mention  of  him  all  along  the  period  of 
about  twelve  years  during  which  he  was  a  member  of 
the  Metropolitan  Police  force. 

We  might  also  refer  for  further  evidence  of  Officer  Mc- 
Watters' honorable  performance  of  his  official  duties  and 
high  standing  in  the  force  to  the  expressed  opinion  of  the 
late  Superintendent  Jourdan.  This  gentleman's  judgment 
of  the  merit  of  an  officer's  services  was,  of  course,  to  a 
great  degree  worthy  of  respect.  But  though  the  Latin 
maxim  is,  "  De  mortuis  nil  nisi  bonum  "  (say  only  good 
of  the  dead),  we  are  constrained  to  feel,  that  although 
Superintendent  Jourdan's  praise  had  a  certain  professional 
merit,  yet  his  moral  character  was  so  questionable,  that  his 
commendation  of  Officer  McWatters  could  hardly  add  to 
the  merit  of  the  latter,  while  his  taste  as  a  gentleman,  and 
his  reverence  for  the  honest  and  the  true,  would  probably 
induce  him  to  prefer  the  non-production  here  of  the  former's 
testimony. 

3  2* 


36  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

OFFICER  MCWATTERS  IN  THE  LATE  CIVIL  WAR:  His 
FORESIGHT. 

Officer  McWatters'  earnest  love  of,  and  reverence  for 
the  free  institutions  of  the  United  States,  are  something 
extraordinary,  it  would  seem.  Reared  in  the  north  of 
Ireland,  and  having  resided  in  London  long  enough  to 
thoroughly  understand  the  miseries  of  the  subject-cla 
of  that  great  metropolis  and  of  England,  Officer  McWat- 
ters was  prepared,  when  he  landed  on  our  shores,  to  render 
at  least  due  appreciation  to  republican  institutions ;  and 
when  the  late  civil  war  broke  out,  he  entered  into  the  con- 
flict against  secession  with  all  his  soul.  His  anxiety  to  go 
to  the  front  at  the  breaking  out  of  the  rebellion,  and  take  a 
soldier's  place  in  the  struggle,  was  only  equalled  by  the 
bitter  regret  that  he  was  prevented  doing  so  by  untoward 
circumstances.  But  what  service  to  the  country  he  was 
thus  forbidden  to  do  upon  the.  field,  he  fully  rendered,  in 
various  forms,  in  his  capacity  as  a  most  active  and  enthusi- 
astic patriot  at  home.  Officer  McWatters  was  not  of  that 
"  noble  home  guard,"  so  justly  and  severely  ridiculed  at 
the  time,  who  urged  others  on  to  the  war,  and  felt  satisfied 
with  their  achievements  in  so  doing  ;  but  he  was  ever  alert 
in  the  discovery  of  ways  and  means  to  serve  the  govern- 
ment, perhaps  more  effectively  than  if  he  had  been  in  the 
ranks  on  the  field,  or  had  headed  a  regiment  in  battle ;  for 
if  Officer  McWatters  had  gone  to  the  field,  such  are  his 
temperament,  popularity,  and  capacity,  that  he  could  not 
long  have  held  a  position  second  to  that  of  many  men  who 
gained  distinction  and  led  New  York  regiments  and  brigades 
— to  say  nothing  of  superior  leaders. 

He  was  of  the  number  of  those  (few,  indeed,  they  may 
properly  be  said  to  have  been),  who,  in  the  early  part  of 
the  rebellion,  took  anything  like  an  adequate  preview 
•of  its  results.  It  appears  that,  early  in  the  war,  he  wrote 
a  letter  to  the  press,  in  which  is  clearly  stated  his  opinion, 
that  the  war  "  can  have  no  less  result  than  the  abolition  of 


BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTES.  37 

negro  slavery."  He  was  prepared  for  this:  implicitly 
believing  in  it,  lie  ordered  his  conduct  thereby,  and 
throughout  the  contest  manifested  an  enthusiasm  propor- 
tionate to  the  mighty  victory  for  humanity  which  he 
so  clearly  foresaw  was  to  be  won. 

FIRST  SEIZURE  OP  GUNS  AT  THE  NORTH. 

Always  vigilant,  and,  everywhere  that  he  was  able,  ready 
and  prompt  to  serve  the  government,  it  must  have  been  a 
matter  of  proud  satisfaction  to  Officer  McWatters  when  he 
made  the  first  seizure  of  guns  which  occurred  at  the  North 
during  the  war,  and  which  guns  were  intended  by  their 
Northern  consignors  —  sympathizers  with  the  rebellion  — 
to  be  used  by  their  Southern  consignees  to  shoot  down  the 
patriot  forces.  This  seizure  is  thus  recorded  in  the  Trib- 
une of  May  12,  1861:  — 

"  The  vigilance  of  the  police  was  yesterday  evinced  by 
the  seizure  of  four  nine-pound  Dahlgren  guns  by  Officer 
McWatters,  of  the  Steamboat  and  Railroad  Police,  on  Pier 
No.  3,  North  River." 

It  will  be  recollected  by  all  who  watched  the  current 
affairs  of  the  war,  that  it  was  in  regard  to  this  seizure  by 
Officer  McWatters,  that  Fernando  Wood,  then  Mayor  of 
New  York,  so  infamously  and  cowardly  made  an  unasked 
apology  to  Robert  Toombs  of  Georgia.  Communication 
with  the  South  was  not  at  that  time  suspended,  and  he 
telegraphed  to  the  secessionist  his  regrets  at  the  seizure, 
and  added  assurance  that  if  he  had  had  control  of  the 
police  the  guns  should  be  restored,  or  that  he  would  have 
forbidden  the  seizure.  Such  was  the  substance  of  his  tele- 
grim.  But  fortunately  for  the  honor  of  the  nation,  as  well 
as  of  the  city  of  New  York,  the  control  of  the  police  had, 
before  that  time,  been  taken  from  Mayor  Wood.  But  his 
telegram  sent  a  thrill  of  shame  through  all  patriotic  hearts, 
and  added  a  new  lustre  to  the  merit  of  Officer  McWatters' 
deed,  by  the  contrast  in  which  it  placed  the  two  men, 
—  the  dutiful,  freedom-loving  police  officer,  and  the  pour 

2155MS 


38  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

creature  who,  having  escaped  the  issues  of  a  criminal '  ,-ial 
by  pleading  the  statute  of  limitations,  had  been  borne  on 
the  shoulders  of  a  "  Sixth  Ward  brigade "  of  repeating 
voters  to  the  questionable  height  of  the  Mayoralty  of 
New  York. 

It  is,  perhaps,  worthy  of  note  here  that  the  virtues  of 
Fernando  Wood  have  since  been  duly  rewarded  by  an  ap- 
preciative constituency  in  New  York,  who  have  sent  him 
for  several  terms  as  their  fit  representative  to  the  Congress 
of  the  nation.  It  is  seldom  that  the  historiographer  has 
the  opportunity  of  recording  such  a  lofty  expression  of  the 
"  gratitude  of  republics ; "  and  the  writer  hereof  takes 
especial  pleasure  in  fixing  it  here  "  in  eternal  types." 
Officer  McWatters'  due  reproof  for  the  seizure  is  fitly 
found  in  the  fact,  that  a  noble  constituency  like  Wood's, 
would,  if  they  could,  have  annihilated  him  for  the  deed. 

OFFICER  MCWATTERS'  SERVICES  THROUGH  THE  PUBLIC 
PRESS. 

Not  only  at  his  post  of  official  duty  was  it  that  Officer 
McWatters  rendered  efficient  service  to  the  government, 
but  throughout  the  war  we  find  him  frequently  making 
noble  appeals  for  aid  to  the  Union  in  one  form  or  another, 
or  setting  forth  some  judicious  plan  of  operations  to  secure 
the  same,  in  able  and  spirited  letters  to  the  Evening  Post, 
the  Tribune,  etc.  It  would  give -the  writer  pleasure  to 
copy  some  of  these  letters  herein,  especially  one  which 
appeared  in  the  Evening  Post  of  October  2,  1861,  but 
the  limits  of  these  biographical  notes  forbid. 

In  the  Tribune  of  August  5, 1864,  appeared  a  letter  from 
Officer  McWatters,  from  which,  notwithstanding  our  narrow 
limits,  we  cannot  forbear  to  make  a  short  quotation,  since 
it  so  well  evinces  his  spirit,  both  as  a  man  and  a  writer,  a-» 
well  ;i-  his. lofty  appreciation  of  the  honor  and  glory  of  his 
adopted  country's  institutions.  A  portion  of  the  letter  is 
addressed  to  working-men,  urging  them  to  loan  to  the  i:  i- 
tion,  in  its  hour  of  peril,  such  sums  of  money  as  they  could 


BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTES.  39 

save ;  and  the  letter  concludes  with  these  noble  words : 
"  Fellow  Working-men :  I  have,  by  hard  scraping,  saved  one 
hundred  dollars.  I  am  going  to  lend  it  to  the  government. 
I  ask  you,  in  the  name  of  humanity  and  patriotism,  to  '  go 
and  do  likewise.'  Your  country  demands  your  assistance  ; 
respond  generously,  quickly ;  think  of  the  proud  eminence 
on  which  you  stand  before  the  working-men  of  the  world, 
• —  as  American  citizens  I  —  and  acquit  yourselves  as  though 
you  felt  your  dignity." 

KINDLY  AND  WISE  PROVIDENCE. 

Often  is  it,  perhaps,  that  little  deeds  of  gentle  and  silent 
charity,  care  for  the  suffering,  and  unostentatious  benevo- 
lence, speak  more  eloquently  for  the  heart  of  a  true  man, 
than  those  of  valor  on  the  field  of  battle  in  the  noblest 
cause.  In  the  Tribune  of  June  1, 1863,  is  copied  a  certain 
appeal  made  a  day  or  two  before,  and  which  we  recopy 
below :  — 

l"  To  THE  POLICE  OF  NEW  YORK  :  Thousands  of  soldiers  — 
your  fellow-countrymen  —  are  now  lying  in  the  hospitals 
about  Washington,  suffering  from  wounds  received  in  bat- 
tle. Their  chief  torment  is  a  craving  thirst;  water  is  un- 
wholesome, and  cannot  be  given  in  quantities  sufficient  to 
satisfy  the  craving.  The  only  safe  and  effectual  remedy  is 
found  in  the  juice  of  lemons,  and  for  a  supply  of  this  fruit 
the  kindness  of  individuals  must  be  appealed  to.  Twenty- 
five  cents  from  each  member  of  the  force  would  afford 
incalculable  relief  to  those  who  now  pine  for  the  want  of 
this^simple  luxury.  Will  you  help  ?  All  money  paid  over 
to  Inspector  Carpenter  for  this  purpose  will  reach  its  desti- 
nation immediately." 

This  appeal,  effectively  "  displa}Ted  "  (in  the  job-printer's 
parlance),  and  printed  upon  small  handbills,  was  secretly 
circulated  among  the  police,  and  soon  resulted  in  a  contri- 
bution by  them  of  the  unexpectedly  large  sum  of  over  six 
hundred  dollars,  for  lemons  for  the  sick  soldiers.  Though 
a  small  affair  in  the  matter  of  money,  it  proved  a  great  one 


40  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

in  other  considerations.  It  was  not  only  a  beneficent  act, 
but  a  very  judicious  one.  From  whom  the  appeal  emanated 
was  a  profound  secret  among  the  police,  until,  on  the  8th 
of  June,  1863,  there  appeared  in  the  Tribune  a  notice  of  a 
"  report "  by  the  late  Inspector  Carpenter,  in  which,  refer- 
ring to  this  matter,  he  says :  "  To  Patrolman  Me  Waiters,  of 
the  Twenty-Sixth  Precinct,  is  due  the  credit  of  projecting 
this  trifling  donation  from  this  department  to  relieve  the 
sufferings  of  our  sick  and  wounded  soldiers." 

In  many  other  quiet  and  effective  ways  Officer  McWatters 
administered  to  the  comfort  of  our  soldiers  and  their  fami- 
lies during  the  war,  but  we  have  not  space  to  recall  them 
here.  Some  of  them  became  known,  from  time  to  time,  and 
were  recorded  in  the  public  journals  of  the  day. 

"  RIOT  WEEK,"  JULY,  1863:  OFFICER  MCWATTERS  IN  THE 
THICK  OF  THE  FIGHT. 

During  the  whole  war  nothing  of  a  more  fearful  nature 
to  the  cause  of  the  Union  occurred  than  the  great  riot  in 
New  York  city,  which  commenced  on  Monday,  the  13th  of 
July,  1863,  and  was  not  subdued  until  the  following  Fri- 
day. The  people  of  the  North  were,  to  a  considerable  ex- 
tent, becoming  weary  of  the  war,  and  thousands,  if  not 
tens  of  thousands,  who  had  previously  exhibited  a  good  degree 
of  sturdy  patriotism,  began  to  wane  in  their  vigor  and 
firmness  of  purpose,  and  were  ready  to  "  let  the  rebels  go 
in  peace  hereafter."  But  the  facts  of  those  perilous  days 
are  too  fresh  in  the  memory  of  all  to  need  recital  here. 
The  rioters  were  exultant,  and  the  people  stood  aghast  for 
a  while ;  but  finally  the  Metropolitan  Police  force  obtained 
ascendency  over  the  surging  elements  of  the  local  rebellion, 
and  brought  back  peace  to  the  city  again.  But  this  was 
not  done  without  more  severe  effort  and  a  greater  destruc- 
tion of  life  than  was  generally  understood  by  the  country 
at  large  at  that  time. 

Before  us  is  a  book,  entitled  "  Record  of  the  Police  dur- 
ing the  July  Riots,  1863,"  by  David  M.  Barnes,  in  the 


BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTES.  41 

preface  of  which  the  author,  speaking  of  the  slaughters 
during  those  days,  says,  "  The  number  killed  by  the  police 
and  military  in  the  different  conflicts,  when  alone  and 
united,  can  never  be  ascertained;  it  is  estimated  by  those 
who  witnessed, the  scenes,  and  had  the  best  opportunity  of 
judging,  at  fourteen  hundred.  The  bodies  of  those  killed 
on  the  spot  were  hurriedly  taken  off,  and  in  many  cases 
conveyed  out  of  the  city,  or  secreted  here,  and  privately 
buried.  Cases  of  subsequent  deaths  from  wounds,  it  is 
known,  were  attributed  to  other  causes.  Eighteen  persons 
are  known  to  have  been  killed  by  the  rioters,  eleven  of 
whom  were  colored." 

We  confess  ourselves  somewhat  astonished  at  so  large 
an  estimate  of  the  number  killed  during  the  riot ;  but  those 
were  horrible  days,  indeed,  and  the  estimate  is,  we  think, 
quite  probably  within  the  limits  of  the  truth.  The  book 
was  published  in  September,  1863,  it  appears,  —  a  date  a 
sufficiently  long  time  after  the  riots  to  have  allowed  much 
careful  investigation  to  have  been  made.  Among  the  other 
heroes  of  those  days,  whom  the  author  signalizes  by  espe- 
cial mention  by  name,  —  Commissioner  Acton,  Superintend- 
ent Kennedy,  Commissioner  Bergen,  Chief  Clerk  Hawley, 
Inspectors  Carpenter,  Dilks,  and  Leonard,  etc.,  —  is  found 
our  chief  subject,  as  brave,  active,  earnest,  and  efficient  in 
the  midst  of  a  deathly  struggle,  as  he  is  ever  gentle,  kind, 
and  tender  in  his  silent  ministrations  to  the  sick,  sore,  and 
suffering  in  the  days  of  peace.  On  page  eighty-two  of  the 
book  referred  to,  and  where  the  special  history  of  the  con- 
duct of  the  police  of  the  Twenty-Sixth  Precinct  is  detailed 
in  regard  to  their  conflicts  with  the  mob  in  the  City  Hall 
Park,  Printing  House  Square,  and  the  Tribune  Office,  the 
author  says, — '• 

"  No  mercy  was  shown,  and  over  a  hundred  lay  in  the 
square  and  park,  the  well-punished  victims  of  their  own 
folly  and  crime.  While  the  mob  were  being  thus  terribly 
handled  in  the  street,  some  of  the  force  turned  their  atten- 
tion to  the  Tribune  Building,  fighting  their  way  to,  and 


42  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

entering  it.  The  fire  had  just  been  lighted,  and  was  readily 
extinguished.  Officer  McWatters,  on  entering  the  door, 
was  assaulted  by  a  burly  ruffian,  armed  with  a  hay-rung, 
who,  by  a  powerful  blow  on  the  shoulder,  knocked  him 
down;  instantly  on  his  feet  again,  he  more 'than  repaid,  on 
the  heads  of  the  rioters,  the  blow.  The  building  was 
cleared  speedily,  and  not  a  man  in  it  escaped  without 
severe  punishment." 

But  it  is  unnecessary  to  extend  comment  upon  the  career 
of  Officer  McWatters,  as  related  to  the  active  operations 
of  the  war.  As  a  patriot,  his  name  is  not  only  "  without 
spot  or  blemish,"  but  is  one  of  which  the  best  of  citizens 
might  be  proud,  and  of  which  only  such  could  have  made 
themselves  Avorthy. 

OFFICER  MCWATTERS  AND  HIS  LITERARY  ASSOCIATES. 

Before  passing  on,  in  direct  course,  to  the  most  interest- 
ing portion  of  Officer  McWatters'  life,  in  which  the  charac- 
ter of  the  man,  in  his  intensely  benevolent  nature,  is  most 
beautifully  and  nobly  illustrated  in  a  thousand  ways,  we 
pause  here  to  revert  to  him  as  a  gentleman  of  general 
literary  tastes,  and  to  his  friendly  and  genial  associations 
with  men  of  letters.  Mr.  McWatters,  in  his  almost  countless 
letters,  and  other  contributions  to  the  public  press,  has  ever 
seemed  to  avoid  anything  like  notoriety,  —  to  be,  in  short, 
quite  unambitious  to  secure  to  himself  anything  like  popu- 
lar distinction  by  his  pen  ;  for  nearly  all  his  contributions  to 
the  press  have  been  unaccompanied  by  his  name,  and  when 
not  literally  anonymous,  published  over  various  sobri- 
quets, known  only  to  a  few  of  his  friends  at  most.  Not  a 
few  of  his  most  intimate  acquaintances  will  doubtless  be 
surprised  when  the  spirited  and  elegant  series  of  articles 
which  he  now  gives  to  the  world  in  "  Knots  Untied  "  revi-al 
to  them  the  man  in  his  higher  literary  estate,  so  unost.  u- 
tatiotis  has  he  been,  and  so  little  merit  did  his  modesty 
permit  him  to  attach  to  the  articles  in  question,  until  diffi- 
dently submitted  by  him  to  the  inspection  of  a  few  of  his 


BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTES.  43 

critical  literary  friends,  who,  delighted  with  their  enga- 
ging style,  and  appreciating  their  practical  worth,  urged  the 
half-astonished  author  to  give  them  to  the  public,  as  a  duty 
he  owed  to  his  fellow-citizens. 

His  course  has  been  altogether  a  too  modest  one  (if  we 
be  permitted  to  speak  in  criticism  thereof).  But,  for  his 
own  private  happiness,  Mr.  McWatters  has  never  failed  to 
appreciate  the  society  of  literary  men,  and  notwithstand- 
ing his  multiplied  duties,  official  and  humanitary,  has  always 
managed  to  find  time  to  cultivate  the  acquaintance  of  the 
most  gifted  and  distinguished  literateurs,  artists,  and  so 
forth,  who,  during  the  last  fifteen  years  especially,  have 
given  lustre  to  the  great  metropolis.  A  genial  man,  a  good 
story-teller,  courteous  under  all  circumstances,  full  of  spar- 
kling intelligence,  generous  to  an  extreme  degree,  a  man  of 
excellent  habits  as  well  as  refined  sentiments,  he  has 
always  been  welcomed  by  these  men  of  lettered  distinc- 
tion, to  whom  we  refer  above. 

And  here  we  should  be  pleased  to  introduce  the  names 
of  the  most  remarkable  of  Mr.  McWatters'  literary  asso- 
ciates, up  to  the  year  1871,  as  illustrative  of  the  good  taste 
of  our  subject.  But  the  record  would  be  too  long  for 
place  here  ;  besides,  we  might,  while  reciting  the  names  of 
some,  fail,  through  fault  of  memory,  in  this  hasty  writing, 
to  recall  those  equally  worthy  of  record  here.  But  we 
have  at  hand  an  article  clipped  from  the  New  York  Illus- 
trated News  of  August  2, 1862,  in  which  is  arrayed  a  list  of 
many  of  those  who  at  that  time  were  distinguished  lights 
in  the  literary  world,  and  some  of  whom  have  achieved 
imperishable  honors  since,  while  others  of  the  number  have 
been  gathered  to  their  fathers  —  borne  to  their  tombs  in 
the  "  laureate  hearse,"  after  having  won  and  borne  upon 
their  brows  the  bays  of  many  a  literary  victory. 

The  article  in  question  descants  upon  "  PfafFs ;  "  and  its 
literary,  artistic,  and  other  distinguished  habitues.  But  we 
will  quote  it  entire  for  the  reader's  pleasure,  and  informa- 
tion, possibly,  as  well :  — 


44  KNOTS    UNTIED. 

"As  so  much  has  been  said  in  the  papers,  from  time  to  time,  about 
'  PfafTs,'  it  may  be  well  to  state  that  the  name  is  descriptive,  simply,  of  a 
'  restaurant  and  lager  bier  saloon,'  kept  at  No.  647  Broadway,  by  a  Teu- 
ton of  that  name,  and  which,  partly  from  its  central  position,  and  partly 
from  the  excellence  of  its  fare,  has  been  such  a  favorite  resort,  for  sev- 
eral years,  for  artists,  literateurs,  actors,  managers,  editors,  critics,  poli- 
ticians, and  other  public  characters,  as  to  have  become  quite  famous.  It 
is  not,  as  has  been  often  reported,  the  rendezvous  of  a  particular  clique 
or  club  of  Bohemians  (whatever  they  may  be),  but  simply  a  general  and 
convenient  meeting-place  for  cultivated  men,  and  one  where,  almost 
any  evening,  you  may  meet  representatives  of  nearly  every  branch  of 
literature  and  art,  assembled,  not  by  appointment,  nor  from  habit  even, 
but  '  met  by  chance,  the  usual  way.*  Among  the  literary  men  whom  we 
have  met  there  from  time  to  time,  during  the  last  three  or  four  years,  may 
be  mentioned  Walt  Whitman,  Aldrich,  Winter,  Stoddard,  Bayard  Taylor, 
W.  Ross  Wallace,  W.  D.  Howells,  Frank  Otterson,  Charles  Dawson 
Shanly,  W.  II.  Fry,  Edward  Howland,  Charles  Seymour,  '  Doesticks,' 
'  Artemus  Ward,'  '  Figaro,'  T.  C.  Evans,  E.  C.  Stedman,  Charles  F. 
Briggs,  E.  G.  P.  Wilkins,  Charles  Gayler,  J.  V.  Sears,  Harry  Neill,  E. 
H.  House,  Frank  Wood,  C.  Burkhardt,  Rosenberg,  A.  F.  Banks,  '  Walter 
Barret,'  George  Arnold,  Charles  D.  Gardette,  '  Howard  of  the  Times,' 
and  Thad.  Glover;  among  artists,  Stillman,  Palmer,  Launt,  Thompson, 
Cafferty,  G.  II.  Hall,  Shattuck,  Innis,  Sewcll.  Henessy,  Loop,  Avery, 
Frank  Howland,  Homer  Martin,  Eastman  Johnson,  Bierstadt,  Van 
Beest,  Hitchings,  Bellew,  Mullen,  Anthony,  Ey tinge,  Nast,  Baker,  Sontag, 
Bougliton,  Rowse;  and  of  other  well-known  characters,  Ullman,  Stra- 
kosch,  Maretzek,  Grau,  Stigelli,  Mollenbaur,  II.  L.  Bateman,  Nixon, 
Dolly  Davenport,  Davidge,  Young,  Fisher,  Floyd,  Reynolds,  Stuart, 
Moss,  Clianfrau,  Mason,  the  Hanlons,  Officer  McWntters,  J.  Augustus 
Page,  Gill  Davis,  Schauss,  Seitz,  Brisbane,  Dr.  Wainwright,  etc.,  etc.,  in- 
cluding a  good  number  of  politicians,  and  that  large  class  of  people,  called 
Germans,  without  end." 

Of  this  goodly  host,  the  gifted  Wilkins ;  Fry,  the  erudite, 
then  BO  distinguished  in  the  editorial  and  musical  world ; 
Arnold,  the  genial  young  essayist,  poet,  and  humorist; 
"  Artemus  Ward,"  and  perhaps  others,  long  since  made 
their  last  visit  to  PfaflPs  —  their  lights  of  life  going  out  in 
the  peaceful  darkness  of  death,  while  "  their  literary 
torches  burn  on,"  — "  stars  which  gleam  forever." 

And  other  of  these,  —  Whitman,  Stedman,  Howells,  Al- 
drich, and  Edward  Howland,  for  especial  example  —  (the 
I;t>t  lour  being,  in  1862,  of  the  very  youngest  of  the  above 
array),  and  Bierstadt,  Shattuck,  etc.,  have  climbed  to  the 


BIOGRAPHICAL   NOTES.  45 

top  of  Parnassian  heights,  won  bright  and  solid  victories 
in  the  field  of  prose  as  essayists,  historians,  etc.,  or  trans- 
ferred nature  to  the  canvas  with  that  beauty  and  sublimi- 
ty of  artistic  truthfulness  which  have  commanded  for  them 
the  admiration  of  the  world. 

It  is  with  these  men,  and  others  of  equal  order  of  intel- 
Isctual  and  social  gifts,  that  Officer  McWatters  has  passed 
most  of  his  leisure  hours  for  many  years ;  thus  keeping 
his  genial  nature  and  bright  intelligence  free  from  the  cor- 
rosion and  canker  which  eat  into  the  moral  and  intellec- 
tual vitals  of  the  mere  business  man ;  and  preserving  him- 
self physically,  too,  fresh  and  buoyant  as  youth  itself. 
The  great  number  of  personal  souvenirs  which  Officer 
McWatters'  author  friends  have  presented  him,  in  the 
shape  of  copies  of  their  respective  works,  constitute 
quite  a  "library"  in  themselves,  —  a  pleasing  recognition, 
grateful  to  himself  and  his  family,  of  the  excellent  social 
merits,  intellect,  and  moral  worth  of  the  man  and  the 
officer. 

OFFICER  MCWATTERS  AS  THE  GOOD  SAMARITAN. 

Whatever  are  our  subject's  merits  otherwise,  as  a  man 
and  an  officer,  and  extreme  though  was  his  patriotic  zeal 
during  the  late  civil  war,  and  to  which  he  gave  practical 
expression  in  the  wisest  and  noblest  ways,  all  these  has  he 
eclipsed,  and  rendered  comparatively  unworthy  of  note, 
by  his  career  since  the  war  as  a  Good  Samaritan,  a  prac- 
tical "  Home  Missionary  "  (if  it  be  not  derogatory  to  apply 
to  him  a  designation,  however  kindly,  which  usually  sig- 
nifies but  little  more  than  a  sectarian  proselyter  of  one 
school  or  another).  Always  interested  in  social  problems, 
Officer  McWatters  is  too  intelligent  not  to  fully  understand 
that  the  fragmentary  reforms  and  the  ordinary  great  chari- 
ties of  the  times  can  never  subdue  the  evils  which  his  heart 
would  abate  and  banish  from  society  forever.  Indeed,  it  is 
the  opinion  of  the  writer,  (however  little  this  may  accord 
with  Officer  McWatters'  views,  or  however  opposed  he  may 


46  KNOTS    UNTIED. 

be  to  so  radical  sentiments,  for  herein  the  writer  speaks  for 
himself  and  no  one  else),  that  the  availability  of  charity 
towards  abolishing  evil  is  but  pitiable  at  best.  Giving  the 
beggar  an  old  coat,  only  to  be  called  on  by  some  other  beg- 
gar for  a  like  coat,  and  never  seeking  to  abolish  beggary 
and  its  attendant  sufferings  by  some  judicious  means  of 
abolishing  beggars  themselves,  by  destroying  the  causes 
which  create  them,  is  unscientific,  paltry,  and  in  every  way 
unwise  at  best. 

It  is  only  about  nineteen  hundred  years  since  the  ad- 
vent of  Christianity ;  and  perhaps  not  over  two  hundred 
and  fifty  millions  of  people  at  the  present  time  profess  to 
be  Christians,  and  belong  to  some  of  the  symbolized  divis- 
ions of  the  church,  while  may  be  not  over  three  hundred 
millions  more  profess  to  be  Christians  in  spirit;  and  not 
much  of  good  could  well  be  expected  to  grow  up  in  so 
short  a  time,  and  with  so  few  advocates  to  encourage  it ; 
yet  the  writer  confesses  that,  in  some  of  his  weaker  moods, 
he  is  astonished  after  all  that  something  has  not  been  done 
by  Christian  people  to  abolish  the  proximate  and  fruitful 
cause  of  nearly  all  the  crimes  and  sufferings,  namely,  pov- 
erty. The  sufferings  of  the  poor  in  New  York,  for  exam- 
ple, are  terrible  to  contemplate  ;  and  the  much-boasted 
great  charities  of  the  metropolis  are  directed  only  to  tem- 
porary relief  of  the  sufferers.  This  is  their  highest  aspi- 
ration even.  They  proclaim  no  desire  to  do  more,  at  best, 
than  to  smooth  the  bed  of  the  sick,  and  procure  "  places  ". 
for  children  (to  grow  up  and  work  for  others  in),  or  situ- 
ations for  this  woman  or  that  poor  man  out  of  employ- 
ment. 

The  right  of  these  children  and  these  poor  men  and 
women  to  live  at  all,  and  the  duty  of  society  to  guarantee 
to  the  individual  the  enjoyment  of  that  right,  are  wholly 
ignored  by  them.  Year  after  year  they  perform  their 
patchwork  charities  with  a  patience  which  would  be  com- 
mendable in  the  pursuit  of  science,  and  which,  while  it 


BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTES.  47 

astonishes  the  writer  at  its  stupidity,  nevertheless  com- 
mands from  him,  as  he  cheerfully  confesses,  a  sort  of  re- 
spect, if  not  admiration ;  for  many  of  these  charity -doers 
are,  really  the  best  of  people  at  heart,  and  would  doubtless, 
if  they  knew  how,  do  better,  act  more  wisely.  But  they 
are  ignorant  of  better  means  than  they  use  ;  and,  in  fact, 
it  has  never  occurred  to  them  that  better  and  wiser  means 
ought  to  be,  or  could  be  taken  than  those  they  employ,  to 
assuage  human  suffering. 

With  his  study  and  understanding  of  sociology,  Officer 
McWatters  must  necessarily  see,  we  think,  and  painfully 
feel,  how  mengre  and  pitiful  are  the  amends  which  charity 
makes  to  those  victims  whom  society  has  robbed  of  their 
rights ;  and  his  sense  of  this  must  constantly  operate  to 
weaken  his  courage  and  chill  his  enthusiasm  in  the  cause 
of  petty  or  "patchwork"  charities.  Yet  withal  so  abun- 
dant is  his  good  nature,  so  sensitive  his  sympathies,  that 
years  do  not  seem  to  abate  his  zeal  therein  at  all ;  and 
here  is  the  wonder.  He  keeps  on  in  his  good  works, 
though  the  institutions  of  society  multiply  the  sufferings 
he  would  abate,  and  bring  to  his  door  ten  new  sufferers 
because  he  has  just  aided  one  old  one.  As  long  as  such 
souls  as  McWatters'  continue  doing  their  good  deeds,  so 
long  will  the  rapacious  and  extortionate  thank  them,  and 
continue  to  create  victims  for  them  to  practise  their  hu- 
manity upon.  The  landlord,  whose  tenant  is  poor  and  sick, 
is  very  grateful,  of  course,  to  the  "  charitable  society " 
which  helps  his  tenant  to  pay  the  rent ;  and  it  is  a  ques- 
tion with  the  writer,  sometimes,  if  it  were  not  better  that 
the  kind  and  tender-hearted  benefactors  of  the  poor  were 
less  numerous  ;  for  if  the  poor  were  goaded  on  by  suffer- 
ing a  little  further,  they  might,  dispelling  the  mists  of 
ever-fallacious  "  hope "  from  before  their  eyes,  come  to 
see  their  rights,  and  demand  them. 

It  is  to  the  advantage  of  the  master  to  feed  his  chattel- 
slave  sufficiently  well  to  keep  him  in  good  strength  for 
work.  Charity,  under  direction  of  the  masters  in  society, 


48  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

feeds  the  working  classes  only  up  to  the  point  of  usefulness 
as  wages-slaves.  It  is  cheaper  for  a  given  present  time  to 
keep  a  poor  man  in  a  working  condition  than  it  is  to  let  him 
starve  to  death,  and  so  incur  the  expense  of  burying  him. 
That  expresses  the  morale  of  the  master-classes'  "  consid- 
eration "  of  the  subject-classes  ;  and  here  in  the  United 
States  the  "  tender  love  "  of  the  strong  for  the  weak  is 
just  as  marked  as  in  other  lands,  perhaps ;  but,  alas !  no 
more  so,  notwithstanding  our  boasted  love  of  "  liberty 
and  right." 

But  we  remarked  that  Officer  Me  Waiters  must  under- 
stand all  this,  and  yet  pursues  his  constant  course  of  chari- 
ties. Not  for  the  wisdom  (or  the  lack  of  it,  as  the  case 
may  be)  which  prompts  or  permits  him  to  do  the  thousand 
acts  of  benevolence  for  which  he  is  noted,  is  it  that  he  com- 
mands so  much  of  our  admiration,  but  for  that  tireless 
sympathy  and  wondrous  vitality  of  benevolence  (so  to 
characterize  it)  which  ever  bestir  him,  notwithstanding 
his  clear  understanding  that  he  will,  and  can  alone,  only 
mitigate  effects,  and  not  cure  causes ;  that  he  is  "  carrying 
coals  to  Newcastle  "  all  the  while,  or  is  putting  one  brick 
on  a  pile,  only  to  see  a  dozen  fall  therefrom ;  and  this, 
though  he  repeats  it  day  after  day: 

As  we  have  before  remarked,  Officer  McWatters  is  not 
a  rich  man,  save  in  his  own  good  nature  and  the  affection 
of  his  multitudinous  friends ;  and  his  charities  mean  some- 
thing to  his  purse,  drawing  from  it  constantly  whatever 
he  can  find  time  or  opportunity  to  place  there  ;  for,  if  the 
writer  is  correctly  informed,  Officer  MeWatters  has  never 
received  a  cent  for  his  multifarious  labors  in  connection 
with  any  of  the  several  organized  charities  to  which  he 
is  attached.  As  a  member  of  the  Metropolitan  Police 
he  received  his  salary,  rendering  therefor  his  full  duty ; 
and  this  was  all  he  had  to  support  himself  and  family  upon  ; 
and  that  was  constantly  depleted  by  his  benevolence,  as 
we  have  remarked  before.  In  view  of  these  facts,  Officer 
McWatters  is  elevated,  in  our  esteem,  to  thrt  ~  '-  r  *'  - 


BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTES.  49 

Howards,  and  the    other  marked    philanthropists  of   the 
world. 

MC-WATTERS  AND  THE  SOLDIERS. 

During  the  late  civil  war,  a3  we  have  said,  Officer 
McWatters  took  a  deep  and  patriotic  interest  in  the  con- 
flict. This  was  manifested  in  many  ways,  particularly 
towards  the  soldiers  and  their  families;  and  he  has  not  for- 
gotten them  since.  Whatever  the  reader  may  think  of  a 
man  who  in  this  age  allows  himself  to  go  deliberately  into 
a  contest,  the  avowed  purpose  of  which  is  to  maim  and 
kill  his  fellow-men,  for  any  cause ;  or  what  he  may  think 
of  that  order  of  society  which  compels  a  man  to  enlist  in 
a  cause  of  cruelty  and  blood  (as  hosts  of  men  were  driven 
into  the  rebel  ranks  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet,  or  by 
conscription,  or  want  of  something  else  to  do,  however  re- 
monstrating), ought  to  have  but  little  bearing  upon  the  case 
of  the  veteran  soldier  now. 

Our  Northern  soldiers  went  to  the  war  with  the  assur- 
ance of  the  public  press,  and  the  declaration  of  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  those  who  remained  at  home,  but  who 
gathered  in  crowds  ("to  see  the  soldiers  off"")  at  the 
places  of  departure,  that  they  should,  on  their  return,  re- 
ceive the  gratitude  of  those  for  whom  they  fought.  Prom- 
ises were  abundant,  and  the  poor,  confiding  fellows  for  the 
most  part  believed  them,  and  on  the  battle-field  found  con- 
solation for  their  hardships  and  dangers  in  the  love  of 
those  they  had  left  behind,  and  which,  poured  forth  in  un- 
stinted measure  on  their  return,  was  to  be  their  "good 
and  abundant  reward."  Poor  fellows  !  they  have  learned, 
for  the  most  part,  the  value  of  their  countrymen's  love  ; 
they  have  learned  how  priceless  is  the  glory  of  an  arm  or 
a  leg  lost,  since  it  secures  for  them,  who  only  had  preca- 
rious homes  before,  a  permanent  home  in  the  poor-house, 
or  has  led  them  to  the  due  consideration  of  the  virtue  of 
economy ;  the  estimable  and  superior  value  of  rags  over 
the  whole  coats  they  used  to  wear ;  of  temperance  in  eat- 
ing, and  other  like  virtues.  Very  few  care  ibr  the  "  veter- 


50  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

an  soldier  "  now,  and  his  family  is  left  to  starve  with  those 
of  other  paupers,  or  with  those  of  the  imprisoned  criminal. 
This  is  the  sad  truth  ;  and  were  another  civil  war  to  arise 
to-day,  probably  but  very  few  of  the  old  rank  and  file,  who 
are  still  strong  and  able,  would  muster  around  the  stan- 
dard again,  but  would  generously  suggest  to  those  who  re- 
mained at  home  before,  that  they  might  now  win  all  the 
victories,  and  enjoy  all  the  glory. 

But  there  are  a  few  in  the  community  who  have  not 
forgotten  the  maimed  veterans  and  their  suffering  fami- 
lies ;  and  chief  among  these  few  is  Officer  McWatters;  for 
we  hazard  nothing  in  saying,  that,  all  things  considered, 
there  cannot  be  found  another  person,  male  or  female,  in 
the  whole  land,  who  has  done  more  for  the  poor  soldiers 
and  their  families  than  he.  He  seems  to  be  impelled 
in  his  constant  care  for  them  by  what  amounts  to  almost  a 
generous  frenzy,  and  which  might  so  be  denominated 
were  it  not  that  his  deeds  in  their  behalf  are  always  di- 
rected by  wisdom  ;  it  is  a  passion,  at  least,  with  him ;  the 
poetry  of  his  current  life. 

LADIES'  UNION  RELIEF  ASSOCIATION. 

Officer  McWatters  is  an  active  member  of  seveial  chari- 
table organizations ;  but  that  under  which  the  greater 
share  of  his  benevolent  deeds  have  been  done  for  the  last 
five  or  six  years  during  which  he  has  been  connected  with 
it,  is  the  Ladies'  Union  Relief  Association.  This  is  an  or- 
ganization, under  the  directorship  of  several  benevolent 
ladies  of  distinguished  social  position  in  New  York,  such 
a*  the  wives  of  Messrs.  Marshall  0.  Roberts,  Ex-Mayor 
Havemeyer,  Dr.  Joseph  Worster,  Henry  Dwight,  J.  A. 
Kennedy  (President),  William  E.  Churchill,  etc.,  with 
Miss  Evelina  S.  Hamilton,  as  Corresponding  Secretary, 
Miss  Madeline  McKibben,  Recording  Secretary,  and  Miss 
Marianna  Hale,  Treasurer  of  the  Association.  This  or- 
ganization has  an  advisory  board,  composed  of  Generals 
Dix,  Van  Vliet,  Butler,  Rev.  Drs.  Chapin  and  Thompson, 


BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTES.  5t 

Hon.  W.  F.  Havemeyer,  Drs.  Herrick  and  Worster,  Messrs. 
Theodore  Roosevelt.  George  Bliss,  Jr.,  William  E.  Dodger 
Jr.,  and  many  other  distinguished  gentlemen.  But  the- 
chief  and  most  active  man  of  the  board  is  our  subjectr 
Officer  George  S.  McWatters,  with  whom,  and  his  con- 
stant aid,  this  benevolent  Association  would  not  willingly 
pa  it. 

The  Ladies'  Union  Relief  Association  undertake  to 
assist  the  sick  and  disabled  veteran  soldiers  and  their 
families,  and  the  families  of  deceased  soldiers ;  and  their 
self-imposed  dirties  are  very  onerous,  and  a  vast  amount 
of  charitable  work  do  they,  visiting  the  sick  and  taking  to 
them  the  necessaries  of  life,  paying  their  rents,  clothing  the 
children  ;  finding  places  of  employment  for  the  ex-soldier,, 
or  his  widow,  or  family  ;  furnishing  this  or  that  one  means 
of  transportation  to  the  far  West,  for  example,  when 
offered  a  home  there  with  some  relative,  etc.,  etc.  These 
duties  are  constant.  The  field  is  always  a  large  one  ;  and 
in  a  season  like  that  of  1870-71,  when  business  is  dull,, 
and  employment  is  scarce,  the  poor  of  New  York  suffer 
extremely.  It  is  in  such  a  season  that  the  relations  of 
poverty  to  the  wealth  which  its  labors  have  created  (for 
the  workers  are  ever  the  poor),  is  seen  in  painful  relief 
v^;on  the  face  of  society. 

In  the  performance  of  his  voluntarily  assumed  duties- 
under  this  Association,  Officer  McWatters  found  nearly  all 
his  time,  aside  from  that  strictly  required  by  his  official 
duties,  occupied,  nights  as  well  as  days.  At  the  police 
headquarters,  where  he  held  a  detailed  position,  the  poor 
and  suffering  flocked  to  him  during  the  day  for  advice 
and  succor ;  and  when  off  duty  as  a  policeman,  he  gave 
his  time  to  visiting  and  aiding  them  in  their  squalid 
homes. 

The    Ex-Superintendent  Kennedy  cordially    seconded 

Officer  McWatters  in  his  benevolent  work,  and  gave  him 

every  facility  for  receiving  the  poor  at  the  police  office. 

Tn  this  way  he  was  enabled,  while  fulfilling  his  duties  as 

4 


52  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

a  policeman,  to  gratify  his  heart  with  kindly  attention  to 
the  poor.  But  eventually  Superintendent  Kennedy  was 
superseded  by  Mr.  Jourdan.  Jourdan  was,  it  would  appear, 
an  unfeeling  man.  He  refused  to  let  the  soldiers  visit 
the  headquarters  in  search  of  Officer  McWatters,  and 
declared  that  they  wero  "  dirty,  and  smelled  bad,"  and  that 
he  would  no  longer  suffer  them  to  come.  Thus  Officer 
McWatters'  mendicant  clientage  was  prohibited  consult- 
ing with  him  during  the  hours  of  police  duty,  and  he  felt 
that  his  dearest,  most  cherished  "  occupation,"  was  almost 
"  gone."  His  sphere  of  pleasant,  though  onerous  duties, 
was  limited,  and  he  fretted  under  the  restraint  of  the  rulo 
which  prevented  the  poor  to  approach  him  —  a  man  whom 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Bellows  declares,  when  referring  to  the  poor 
soldiers,  to  be  "  one  of  their  few  steady,  laborious,  and 
judicious  benefactors." 

But  death  came,  and  laid  Superintendent  Jourdan  in  the 
grave  —  the  common  earth  —  as  lowly  as  the  graves  of 
the  "  dirty,"  poor  soldiers  whom  he  despised.  It  is  a  sig- 
nificant fact  that  this  man  Jourdan's  remains  were  followed 
to  the  tomb  by  many  distinguished  citizens  of  New  York. — 
politicians,  men  of  wealth  and  professional  good  standing, 
and  others.  But  perhaps  it  is  not  so  strange  after  all  that 
he  should  have  been  so  honored  in  New  York,  for  Fer- 
nando Wood  has  been  mayor  of  the  city ;  and  many  who 
have  grown  rich  by  political  thieving  are  kept  in  office, 
and  Jim  Fisk,  Jr.,  is  not  only  suffered  to  live  within  the 
city  limits,  but  has  been  elected  to  the  post  of  colonel 
of  the  Ninth  Regiment,  and  is  actually  extolled  by  great 
numbers  of  the  people.  Crime  is  no  great  stain  to  any  man 
in  New  York  if  he  but  have  money,  or  is  in  the  "  line  "  of 
making  it  fast.  The  city's  'moral  worth  reposes,  for  the 
most  part  now,  with  the  few  members  of  the  churches  who 
are  what  they  profess  to  be,  and  with  the  benevolent  and 
Christian  women,  —  comparatively  few  in  number,  —  like 
those  of  the  Ladies'  Union  Relief  Association,  and  the  few 
Howards,  whose  best  representative  is  officer  McWatters. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTES.  53 

Jour  Jan',)  death,  however,  did  not  abate  the  unjust  rule 
he  had  mads,  forbidding  the  poor  to  seek  their  friends  at 
the  headquarters  of  the  police,  and  Officer  McWatters,  un- 
willing longer  to  follow  for  a  livelihood  a  calling  by  which 
he  was  prevented  from  honoring  the  dictates  of  his  heart 
by  doing  all  which  he  might  do  in  some  other  vocation 
for  the  poor  soldiers  and  their  families,  determined  on  re- 
signing his  post.  While  he  was  casting  about  for  such  a 
position,  some  of  his  friends,  among  whom  were  Rev.  Dr. 
Bellows,  President  of  the  United  States  Sanitary  Commis- 
sio'h  (and  who  cheerfully  says  of  Officer  McWatters,  "  The 
evidence  is  overwhelming  that  few  private  persons  have 
given  so  much  time  and  effectual  aid  to  the  friendless 
class  as  he"),  Wm.  Cullen  Bryant,  and  other  gentlemen 
of  high  character;  and  the  ladies  of  the  Relief  Asso- 
ciation, who  were  unwilling  to  part  with  his  invaluable 
cooperation,  sought,  for  Officer  McWatters,  a  place  in  the 
custom-house,  where  the  lingering  sway  of  no  heartless 
Jourdan  would  oppress  him.  Officer  McWatters'  desire 
being  made  known  to  Collector  Murphy,  he,  be  it  said 
to  his  honor,  immediately  and  generously  offered  him 
a  situation  which  would  enable  him  to  earn  his  liv-: 
ing,  and  continue  his  benevolent  work;  and  on  the  17th 
of  October,  1870,  Officer  McWatters  tendered  the  res- 
ignation of  his  place  as  policeman  to  the  Commis- 
sioners, by  the  following  letter,  a  copy  of  which  we 
take  from  the  New  York  Dispatch  of  the  23d  of  that 
mouth: — 

"NEW  YORK,  October  17,  1870. 
"  To  the  Hon.  Board  of  Police  Commissioners  of  New  York. 

"  GENTLEMEN  :  I  beg  respectfully  to  offer  my  resignation  as  a  patrol  po- 
liceman, the  same  to  take  effect  on  Tuesday,  October  18,  1870. 

"  This  step  has  been  rendered  necessary  for  the  following  reasons:  I 
have  been  prohibited  by  your  representative,  the  late  Superintendent,  from 
employing  my  spare  time  in  the  fulfilment  of  a  duty  which,  in  common 
with  all  good  citizens,  I  owe  to  the  defenders  of  our  country,  the  sick  and 
disabled  soldi  >rs,  and  to  the  widows  and  orphans  of  those  who  perished  in 
the  late  war;  *nd  being  determined  to  fulfil  that  duty,  I  have  obtained  em- 


54  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

ployment  elsewhere,  under  circumstances  that  will  enable  me  to  continue 
to  assist  and  advise  these  poor  people. 

"  Respectfully  asking  your  acceptance  of  my  resignation,  I  remain, 
gentlemen,  yours,  &c., 

"  GEORGE  S.  Me  WAITERS." 

The  public  journals  of  the  times  made  most  complimen- 
tary allusion  to  Officer  Me  Waiters  when  noticing  his  with- 
drawal from  the  police  force  and  acceptance  of  a  post  in  the 
custom-house.  They  spoke  of  him  —  hut  perhaps  it  were 
well  to  let  some  of  them  u  speak  for  themselves."  We  re- 
produce here  the  following  (all  we  have  space  for  in  this 
article)  from  the  New  York  Evening  Post  and  the  DaTly 
Times.  The  former  remarked  thus :  — 

"  The  resignation  of  George  S.  McWallcrs  deprives  the  police  force  of 
one  of  its  most  faithful  and  efficient  members ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  it 
enables  Mr.  McWattcrs  to  continue  his  benevolent  and  gratuitous  services 
in  behalf  of  the  wounded  soldiers,  and  the  widows  and  orphans  of  those 
who  fell  during  the  late  war.  Mr.  McWattcrs  proposes  to  open  an  office, 
under  the  auspices  of  the  Ladies'  Union  Relief  Association,  and  of  General 
Butler,  in  his  capacity  of  President  of  the  Board  of  Managers  of  the  Na- 
tional Homes  for  Disabled  Soldiers,  where,  at  certain  hours  each  day,  he 
can  be  consulted,  and  will  offer  relief  and  assistance.  There  is  now  no 
place  in  this  city  where  this  class  of  persons  can  get  advice  without  paying 
roundly  for  it,  and  running  the  danger  of  falling  into  the  hands  of  unprin- 
cipled claim  agents.  Mr.  Me  Walters  intends  to  give  his  service  gratui- 
tously in  this  good  cause,  as  he  has  been  doing  for  the  last  five  or  six  years. 
He  is  now  filling  an  office  in  the  custom-house,  and  Collector  Murphy  has 
shown  his  discriminating  good  sense  in  making  the  appointment." 

The  Times  said  :  — 

"  The  appointment  of  Mr.  George  S.  Me  Walters  to  the  position  of 
storekeeper,  under  the  New  York  custom-house,  was  most  judicious,  and 
will  be  heartily  approved  by  those  who  are  familiar  with  the  man  and  his 
good  deeds.  He  has  been  connected  with  the  police  department  of  the 
city  for  the  past  twelve  years,  and  never  had  a  charge  preferred  against 
him  in  nil  that  time.  Since  the  war,  in  addition  to  his  police  duties,  he 
ha?  been  an  indefatigable  worker  for  the  interests  of  sick  and  disabled  sol- 
diers, and  the  families  of  those  who  died  in  battle.  Hundreds  of  cases 
have  been  investigated  by  him,  and  relief  obtained  for  the  unfortunate  in 
scores  of  instances.  For  these  services  Mr.  McWntters  received  no  re- 
muneration whatever,  save  the  gratilude  of  those  who  were  the  object  of 
his  beneficence.  His  merits  were  recognized  by  the  collector,  and  hence 
the  offer  of  an  appointmenl,  which  was  accepleJ  a  few  days  after." 


BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTES.  55 

Thus  it  was  that  Officer  Me  Waiters  ended  his  connec- 
tion with  the  Metropolitan  Police,  with  the  honor  of  the 
public  for  his  faithfulness  and  efficiency  as  an  officer,  and 
the  applause  of  all  good  people  for  his  benevolence  and 
laborious  services  in  the  cause  of  philanthropy.  This 
brings  us  to  the  month  of  October,  1870;  since  which 
time  Officer  McWatters  has  been  attending  to  his  duties 
as  an  officer  in  the  custom-house,  and  pursuing  his  career 
as  a  "  Good  Samaritan  "  as  usual. 

THE  SWINDLING  BOUNTY  CLAIM  AGENTS. 

In  these  biographical  notes  it  has  not  been  attempted 
to  preserve  chronological  order  throughout,  as  the  reader 
has  observed,  and  we  now  revert  to  sundry  important 
facts  in  Officer  McWatters'  history,  which  have  been 
passed  over  by  us  without  allusion.  Perhaps  the  chief 
service  which  McWatters  has  rendered  to  the  soldiers  is 
the  successful  war  he  waged  against  the  Bounty  Claim 
Agents  in  1868-G9.  As  the  law  regarding  bounties  then 
stood,  the  agents,  were  able  to  grossly  swindle  the  sol- 
diers. And  many  of  these  agents,  all  over  the  land,  and 
probably  the  most  of  them,  did  swindle  them.  To  appre- 
ciate the  full  merit  of  Officer  McWatters  in  circumventing 
the  swindling  agents,  it  is  necessary  to  understand  how 
they  operated  with  poor  soldiers ;  and  as  we  find  in  the 
New  York  Times  of  March  21,  1869,  a  succint  explanation 
of  their  mode  of  operations,  we  transfer  a  portion  of  the 
article  containing  it  to  these  pages.  It  will  be  found  in- 
teresting as  an  item  in  the  history  of  the  times  (as  well  as 
a  comment  upon  the  beauties  of  civilization  in  general). 
The  article  is  headed  "  Bounty  Swindlers,"  and  goes  on 
to  say :  — 

"  Herman,  who  is  well  known  as  a  former  claim  agent  in  this  city,  is 
now  at  large,  under  forfeited  bail  of  ten  thousand  dollars,  for  swindling 
discharged  soldiers,  who  were  credulous  enough  to  trust  him,  out  of  their 
well-deserved  bounties.  It  is  estimated  by  the  authorities  that  he  made 
nearly  twenty  thousand  dollars  by  these  operations,  which  he  has  so  care- 
fully disposed  of  that  it  cannot  be  recovered  by  his  unfortunate  victims. 


56  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

There  are,  perhaps,  fifty  others  of  the  same  stripe  in  this  cit; ,  who  have 
gathered  small  fortunes  by  thus  defrauding  the  soldier  or  his  widow  and 
orphans. 

"  To  protect  the  soldiers  from  these  sharks,  Mr.  French,  Second  Audi- 
tor of  the  Treasury  Department  at  Washington,  has,  from  time  to  time, 
suspended  all  business  transactions  witli  them.  Tliis  had  the  effect  of 
stopping  the  frauds  for  a  while,  but  the  swindlers  soon  found  a  method  of 
overcoming  the  obstruction.  This  they  did  by  procuring  willing  tools 
through  whom  they  operated  a«  successfully  as  ever. 

"  There  arc  said  to  be  thousands  of  dishonest  agents  all  over  the  United 
States,  who  are  continually  engaged  in  this  nefarious  business.  They  are 
principally  lawyers  who  have  no  reputation  to  lose,  and  who,  therefore, 
are  indifferent  to  public  opinion. 

"  The  modus  operandi  by  which  these  swindles  are  carried  on  is  as  fol- 
lows:  A.  is  a  discharged  soldier,  B.  the  claim  agent.  A.  calls  on  13.,  and 
requests  him  to  procure  his  bounty  money  for  him.  A.  is  informed  that, 
in  order  to  enforce  his  claim,  it  will  be  necessary  for  him  to  intrust  B. 
with  his  certificate  of  honorable  discharge,  to  be  forwarded  to  Washington 
as  a  voucher.  Thus  far  the  transaction  is  legitimate ;  but  now  conies  the 
trickery.  B.  further  informs  A.  that  there  is  another  paper  to  be  for- 
warded with  the  discharge,  a  blank,  which  he  (A.)  must  sign.  It  is  merely 
a  matter  of  form,  B.  says,  which  the  government  requires,  for  some  reason 
best  known  to  itself.  The  signature  is  given,  and  the  soldier  goe?  away, 
assured  that  within  a  few  days  his  check  will  be  ready  for  him.  The  pa- 
per to  which,  in  his  ignorance,  A.  signed  his  name,  turns  out  to  be  an 
absolute  power  of  attorney  conferred  upon  B.,  not  only  to  enforce  the 
claim,  but  also  to  indorse  the  draft  when  it  is  received,  and  to  collect  the 
money  therefor  at  the  bank.  Thus  authorized,  B.  draws  the  cash  at  the 
proper  time,  puts  it  into  his  own  pocket,  and  keeps  it  there.  A.  calls  for 
his  money  at  the  appointed  time,  but  is  put  off  with  the  excuse  that  the 
return  has  not  yet  been  made  by  the  department  at  Washington.  This 
explanation  is  repeated  each  time  that  A.  calls,  until,  finally,  he  becomes 
suspicious  of  unfair  dealing,  and  peremptorily  demands  either  his  certifi- 
cate or  the  bounty.  As  a  rule,  this  demand  leads  to  the  speedy  unfolding 
of  the  base  villany.  B.  acknowledges  that  he  has  collected  the  money, 
and  adds  that  he  has  spent  it,  but  that  he  will  refund  it  as  soon  as  he  is 
able  to  do  so.  The  claim  agent  having  acted  by  full  power  of  attorney  in 
the  matter,  cannot  be  prosecuted  criminally,  and  the  only  remedy  open  to 
the  victimized  soldier  is  a  civil  suit  for  the  recovery  of  the  amount  of  his 
claim.  The  remedy  is  ineffectual,  "however,  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  the 
swindler  has  no  property  out  of  which  to  satisfy  judgment,  and  the  sold'er 
being  too  poor  to  prosecute  the  case,  the  affair  ends  at  this  point. 

"  There  are  now  in  the  Second  Auditor's  office  as  many  as  sixty-f  ve 
thousand  unsettled  bounty  claims,  representing  about  four  millions  fire 
hundred  thousand  dollars,  and  by  the  recent  passage  of  another  bounty 
act,  that  sum  will  soon  be  augmented  by  nearly  five  hundred  thousand 
dollars.  It  will  thus  be  seen  that,  unless  some  measures  are  taken  by  (  'i 


BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTES.  57 

government  to  prevent  it,  five  million  dollars  more  will  pass  into  the  hands 
of  .swindling  agents,  to  the  great  loss  of  thot.e  for  whose  benefit  it  was  in- 
tended." 

But  long  before  this  article  appeared  in  the  Times,  Offi- 
cer McWatters  had  been  reflecting  upon  a  measure  for 
rescuing  the  poor  soldiers  from  the  despoiling  grasp  of  the 
agents.  He  had  laid  his  plans  before  the  Ladies'  Union 
Relief  Association,  and  the  good  ladies,  at  once  appreciat- 
ing it,  commissioned  him  to  go,  in  the  name  of  the  Associ- 
ation, to  Washington,  and  procure,  if  possible,  the  imme- 
diate carrying  out  of  his  plan,  which  consisted  of  certain 
changes  in  the  law.  He  went  at  once  to  the  Capital,  and 
called  upon  President  Grant,  who  kindly  received  him,  and 
to  whom  he  unfolded  his  plan.  The  Military  Committee  of 
the  Senate  were  also  visited,  and  they,  as  the  President 
had  likewise  done,  gave  Mr.  McWatters  assurances  of  their 
sympathy  with  his  designs,  which  they  proceeded  to 
directly  express,  by  a  proposed  change  in  the  law,  which 
was  in  due  time  made.  Messrs.  Wilson  and  Howe  of  the 
Senate,  General  Butler  and  General  Logan  of  the  House, 
were  particularly  earnest  and  active  in  aiding  Officer 
McWatters  to  accomplish  his  great  aim  in  this  matter.  A 
resolution  "  for  the  protection  of  soldiers  and  their  heirs," 
according  to  Officer  McWatters'  plan,  after  passing  both 
Houses  of  Congress,  received  the  approval  of  the  Presi- 
dent, and  became  a  law  on  the  10th  of  April,  1869,  and  thou- 
sands of  soldiers  have  since  blessed  their  ever  warm  and 
judicious  friend,  McWatters,  for  one  of  the  very  best  deeds 
that  has  been  done  in  their  behalf  since  the  war.  Lodges 
of  the  Grand  Army  of  the  Republic,  in  all  parts  of  the 
country,  passed  votes  of  compliment  and  gratitude  to  him ; 
and  the  press,  also,  was  everywhere  laudatory  of  him. 

The  new  law  forbids  the  Treasury  and  Pay  Departments 
paying  bounties  due  the  soldiers  to  any  claim  agent,  or 
upon  "any  power  of  attorney,  transfer,  or  assignment  what- 
ever ;"  but  provides  that  the  money  due  shall  be  sei-fc 
directly  to  the  soldier  or  his  heirs,  by  draft,  on  their  order. 


GS  KNOTS    UNTIED. 

or  through  the  Frccdman's  Bureau,  or  state  agents  appoint- 
ed specially  for  that  purpose,  etc.,  at  no  cost  to  the  soldier 
or  his  heirs.  The  law  also  provides,  that  the  government 
shall  retain  in  its  hands  such  proper  fees  as  may  be  due  to 
the  claim  agents  for  their  services  in  procuring  bounties, 
which  fees  are  subject  to  the  agents'  order;  thus  securing 
1o  them  all  that  is  justly  their  due,  while  also,  in  a  truly 
Christian  or  motherly  way,  shielding  them  from  the  tempt- 
ation to  rob  the  poor  soldier  or  his  heirs  of  everything. 
(One  object  of  governments,  we  are  told  by  sundry  "  great 
writers  on  Law,"  is  to  protect  the  morals  of  the  people ; 
which  we  arc  very  glad  to  be  assured  of — sometimes.  It 
is  refreshing  to  be  told  that  a  divine  power  has  a  hand  in 
the  governmental  institutions  of  the  world ;  for  if  we  were 
not  so  informed  by  the  great  writers,  we  might  not  always 
be  able  to  discover  the  fact.) 

But  this  victory  over  the  claim  agents  was  not  won 
without  much  hard  fighting  on  Officer  McWatters'.  part. 
The  rascally  agents  harassed  him,  threatened  him,  and  at- 
tempted to  bribe  him,  etc.  But  without  going  into  details, 
we  will  content  ourselves  with  transferring  to  these  pages 
an  article  which  we  find  in  The  Sun,  of  April  10,  1869  :  — 

"The  thanks  of  hundreds  of  soldiers  who  have  been  defrauded  by  the 
bounty  thieves,  are  due  to  General  John  A.  Logan,  for  pushing  through 
Metropolitan  Policeman  McWatters'  bill,  requiring  that  all  moneys  due 
them  shall  be  paid  to  the  soldiers  direct,  the  government  reserving  to 
it-elf  the  lees.  While  Officer  McWatters  was  in  Washington,  the  bounty 
thieves  pretending  to  enjoy  influence  with  the  Metropolitan  Police  Com- 
mi.-sioners,  threatened  him,  and  tried  to  buy  him  off',  one  of  the  fellows 
offering  him  five  hundred  dollars  to  '  go  home  and  mind  his  own  busi- 
ness.' We  reproduce  two  of  their  threatening  letters,  as  follows :  — 

"  «  MR.  MCWATTERS.  Dear  Sir :  You  are  in  a  business  that  don't  suit 
you  —  something  you  have  no  right  in.  The  men  you  are  working  against 
area  large  and  influential  class;  have  power  where  you  least  expect  it. 
You  have  a  good  position  on  the  police.  As  you  value  it,  quit  your  pres- 
sent  action.  Let  the  soldiers  take  care  of  themselves ;  it  don't  pay  you, 
nor  will  it.  You  can't  afford  to  play  philanthropist.  Leave  that  to  men 
of  means,  and  women,  if  you  like.  A  word  to  the  wise. 

" '  Yours,  a  friend, 

"  •  NEW  YORK,  March  27,  1869.  II.  B.  L.' 


BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTES.  59 

"  '  MR.  MCWATTERS.  Dear  Sir :  Your  visit  to  Washington  will  do 
you  no  good,  but  may  possibly  result  in  great  harm  to  yourself.  You 
have  a  good  position  now,  and  I  think  you  had  better  let  the  soldiers' 
matters  alone,  as  you  are  interfering  with  the  business  of  those  whose 
power  and  influence  can  be  used  against  you  to  disadvantage.  If  you 
think  anything  at  all  of  your  own  welfare,  leave  Washington  immediately, 
and  pursue  the  matter  no  further.  Yours,  etc.,  P.  G.  W. 

"  'NEW  YORK,  March  29,  18G9.'  " 

But  Officer  Me  Walters'  labor  for  the  soldier  and  his  fam- 
ily, in  regard  to  the  laws  regulating  payments  thereto,  did 
not  stop  here.  In  1870,  in  conjunction  with  others  (he  being 
the  proposer  of  the  same,  we  believe,  as  he  was  surely  the 
most  active  mover  thefeto),  obtained  a  change  to  be  made 
in  the  time  and  frequency  of  the  payment  of  pensions  ;  the 
same  theretofore  being  paid  only  semi-annnally.  There 
were  evils  attending  these  semi-annual  payments.  Some 
recipients  getting  so  much  of  their  dues  at  a  time,  were 
led  to  improvidence,  spending  the  same  more  freely  than 
they  would  have  done  smaller  sums ;  and  their  families 
often  complained  about  the  matter.  Officer  McWatters 
urged  the  proposition  of  monthly  payments,  but  was  unable 
to  secure  his  object ;  but  the  law  was  changed,  making  the 
pensions  payable  in  quarterly  instalments.  This  was  a 
great  improvement  over  the  old  law.  Officer-  McWatters 
received  numerous  letters  of  gratitude  on  the  passage  of 
the  law.  We  clip  the  following  in  relation  thereto,  from 
the  Tribune  of  December  9,  1870:  — 

"  The  first  payment  of  pensions  under  the  new  law  making  the  pay- 
ments quarterly  instead  of  semi-annual,  began  last  Monday,  and  many 
grateful  letters,  illustrating  the  beneficial  working  of  the  new  plan,  have 
already  been  received  by  Mr.  G.  S.  McWatters,  who  was  instrumental,  in 
conjunction  with  the  Ladies'  Union  Relief  Association,  in  procuring  the 
passage  of  the  bill." 

The  payments  were  made  formerly  in  March  and  Sep- 
tember ;  and  how  the  pensioner  welcomed  a  quarterly 
payment  coming  on  the  first  Monday  of  December,  is  per- 
haps as  feelingly  told,  in  its  own  homely  way,  as  it  well 
could  be,  in  the  following  extract  from  one  of  those  letters 
to  which  the  Tribune  refers.  A  pensioner,  writing  to 

3* 


CO  KNOTS   UNTIED; 

McWatters,  says:  "  Nobody  but  a  poor  man  can  appreciate 
the  feelings  a  poor  man  enjoys  in  the  consciousness  of 
having  a  clean  rent  bill,  a  ton  of  coal,  and  a  barrel  of  flour, 
in  the  first  month  of  winter/' 

Ay!  there  is  an  eloquence  in  those  words  —  an  elo- 
quence which  touches  the  softer  chords  of  the  heart, — 
"  The  poor  man  enjoys "  !  Nobody  more  than  Officer 
McWutters,  the  philanthropist,  could  appreciate  the  poor 
pensioner's  letter.  But  is  there  not  in  that  letter  that 
which  touches  other  chords  than  those  of  sympathy  —  the 
chords  of  justice  in  all  decent  souls?  a  sense  of  justice 
which  regards  with  horror,  and  burns  with  indignation  over, 
the  wretched  order  of  things,  or  disorder  the  rather,  which 
creates  these  suffering  poor  ?  Very  likely  that  pensioner, 
who  tells  us  so  touchingly  of  "  a  poor  man's  feelings,"  has 
done  more  for  the  world,  created  more  for  the  good  of  his 
fellow-men,  through  his  labor,  in  the  form  of  agricultural 
products,  necessary  work  of  one  kind  or  another,  etc.,  etc., 
than  all  the  millionnaires  of  New  York  together,  —  the 
mere  cormorants,  who  fatten  upon  the  toil  of  the  laboring 
classes.  Is  it  not  a  shame  to  our  common  humanity  that  a 
barrel  of  flour  should,  in  any  family,  become  a  subject  for 
their  rejoicing  ?  "  How  a  poor  man  feels  !  "  —  in  this  world 
of  wealth  !  in  this  age  of  Christian  teaching !  in  this  era  of 
churches  !  Bah  !  it  is  enough,  one  would  think,  to  make 
the  apostles  of  the  Nazarene  arise  from  their  graves,  and 
seize  the  pword  of  Peter,  to  put  an  end  to  the  villany 
which  still  enslaves  the  masses  and  keeps  them  poor.  But 
we  do  not  hear  that  they  are  disturbed,  nor  do  we  learn 
that  there  is  pity  anywhere  in  the  universe  for  the  poor, 
save  in  the  souls  of  the  poor  themselves,  and  in  those  of  a 
few  philanthropists  here  and  there.  But  that  is  well,  for  it 
is  not  pity  which  is  to  work  the  good  reformation  which 
must  some  time  be  wrought  :  it  is  justice,  the  justice  which 
shall  vet  demand  ?v'j////.v,  and  banish  even  the  name  of  pri v- 
ili'tji's:  justice,  with  science  as  its  means.  All  else  has  sig- 
nally failed  to  achieve  any  great  good. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTES.  61 

Froude  and  other  great  writers  admit  that  but  little  real 
progress  has  been  made  under  our  social  institutions. 
Changes  have  come  along  the  line  of  the  centuries,  it  is 
true,  but  the  "  poor  man  "  (and  the  term  generically  com- 
prehends the  vast  majority  of  the  race),  the  poor  man 
suffers  as  much  in  these  days  as  in  those  of  Moses,  or  in 
Caligula's,  or  in  the  dark  ages,  or  any  period  of  feudal 
times ;  and  yet  we  boast  of  "  progress."  In  no  period  of 
the  world's  history  has  anything  more  reprehensible  than 
the  suffering  of  the  Irish  people  at  home,  in  these  days, 
occurred ;  and  there  is  no  reason  found  in  the  organic 
structure  of  our  government  why  our  own  poor  suffer 
less,  or  shall  suffer  less  in  the  future,  than  the  Irish  people 
now,  save  that  there  is  a  little  more  mercy  in  the  laws 
which  the  tyrant  or  governing  classes  of  this  country 
make  for  the  laboring  classes,  in  the  matter  of  certain 
household  goods,  for  example,  exempt  from  levy  of  attach- 
ment or  execution  ;  (but  this  is  true  only  of  the  laws  of  cer- 
tain States,  not  of  the  national  laws).  And  this  very  hour, 
as  we  write,  the  National  Congress  is  contemplating  putting 
millions  of  acres  of  the  public  domain  into  the  hands  of  the 
tyrant  forces,  thus. robbing  the  future  millions  who  will 
need  the  soil  to  live  upon.  4 

"  The  poor  man's  feelings  "  !  But  we  dismiss  the  sub- 
ject here,  with  the  simple  words, —  eloquent  enough  to  stir 
every  decent  soul  to  indignation  over  the  wrongs  of  the 
laboring  classes, —  "The  feelings  of  a  poor  man"  ! 

But  more  work  for  the  soldier  and  his  family  remained 
for  Me  Walters  to  do,  and  he  is  at  this  writing  (February, 
1871)  attempting,  with  the  support  of  the  ever  noble  and 
active  Ladies'  Union  Relief  Association,  to  get  an  act 
passed  by  Congress,  by  which  an  honorably  discharged 
soldier,  too  poor  to  buy  his  own  grave,  may  console  him- 
self, in  his  last  moments,  that  his  family  will  not  be  obliged 
to  follow  him  to  a  pauper's  last  resting-place.  Now,  only 
such  soldiers  as  die  in  actual  service  have  a  right  to  be 
buried  in  the  National  Cemeteries.  The  veriest  villain  may 


C2  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

have  enlisted  in  the  service  yesterday,  and  died,  and  be 
buried  to-day  in  the  National  Cemeteries.  But  the  honora- 
bly discharged  soldier,  who  served  through  tin-  war  bravely 
and  nobly,  is  not  entitled  to  be  buried  therein,  and  if  he 
dies  poor,  goes  to  the  potter's  field.  Such  is  the  nation's 
gratitude ! 

There's  an  awful  sarcasm  in  this  last  work  of  MeWattcr>. 
We  do  not  know  whether,  in  the  overflowing  kindness  of 
his  soul,  he  sees  it  or  not.  Memorializing  "  The  Honorable 
the  Senators  and  Members  of  the  House  of  Representatives 
in  Congress  assembled"  to  provide  a  place  to  bury  the 
nation's  heroes  in,  by  asort  of  legal  fiction,  which,  while  they 
do  fill  paupers'  graves, technically,  obscures  a  little  the  fact 
of  their  abject  poverty,  by  giving  them  graves  "  free  of 
cost."  Poor  fellows  !  After  death  thoy  get  more  rights 
than  they  had  when  living !  The  government  takes  away 
the  soil  from  the  living  man,  robs  him  of  his  right  to  it,  —  a 
right,  the  true  title  to  which  is  in  the  fact  of  his  existence. 
—  his  being  born,  if  you  please, —  and  makes  restitution 
with  six  feet  of  subsoil  to  the  dead  man  ! 

But  the  merit  of  Officer  McWatters'  work  is  not  de- 
creased by  this  consideration.  He  does  the  very  best  thing 
he  can  TO  under  the  circumstances.  But  the  nation  —  the 
community  —  civilization —  what  of  them? 

HONORABLE  TESTIMONIALS  TO  OFFICER  MG-WATTERS. 
We  have  somewhere  said  that  Officer  McWatters  has 
received  not  a  dollar  for  his  years  of  constant,  active 
benevolence.  This  is  literally  true :  but  it  is  not  exactly 
true  in  the  interpretation  which  some  readers  might  give 
it ;  for  Officer  McWatters  has  not  been  wholly  without  sub- 
stantial rewards  other  than  those  of  the  joys  of  his  own 
happiness  in  well  doing.  But  we  have  not  space  to 
notice  all  of  these.  The  one  which  we  presume  is  mo.-t 
dear  to  the  gallant  heart  of  Officer  McWatters,  is  a  testimo- 
nial of  his  benevolent  services  given  him  by  the  Ladies' 
Union  Relief  Association,  in  July,  18G8.  We  copy  the  foi- 


BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTES.  63 

lowing  article  regarding  it  from  the  New  York  Times  of 
July  31,  1868:- 

"  TESTIMONIAL.  —  The  well-known  services  of  Officer  George  S.  Mc- 
Watters  on  behalf  of  disabled  soldiers  and  of  the  widows  and  orphans  of 
fallen  ones,  received  a  handsome  acknowledgment,  a  few  days  since,  at 
the  hands  of  the  Ladies'  Union  Relief  Association,  witli  whose  invaluable 
labors  he  has  closely  identified  himself  since  the  organization  of  the  insti- 
tution. Mrs.  John  A.  Kennedy,  who  is  President  of  the  Association,  pre- 
sented Mr.  Me  Walters  with  a  very  valuable  gold  watch,  purchased  for 
him  with  private  contributions  of  the  ladies  of  the  Association,  as  a  testi- 
monial of  their  appreciation  of  his  energetic  labors  in  the  work  they  have 
so  much  at  heart.  The  watch  is  richly  chased  and  bears  on  one  side  of 
the  outer  case  the  monogram  '  G.  S.  McW.,'  and  on  the  other,  also  in 
monogram,  '  1868.'  The  inner  case  has  the  following  inscription  :  — 

"'Presented  to  George  S.  Me  Waiters  by  the  members  of  the  Ladies1 
Union  Relief  Association,  in  appreciation  of  his  services  to  the  families 
of  Union  Soldiers.  18G8.' 

"  It  is  pleasing  to  note  this  handsome  recognition  of  the  quiet  energy  and 
modest  worth  of  Officer  McWatters,  who  has  in  many  ways  and  frequent- 
ly, during  the  war  and  since,  given  remarkable  evidence  of  how  much 
good  work,  in  a  humble  and  unpretending  way,  is  within  the  compass  of 
a  single  individual,  impelled  by  a  spirit  of  true  philanthropy." 

"We  also  append  a  notice  of  the  same  testimonial,  taken 
from  The  Sun  of  the  same  date,  since  it  very  succinctly 
sets  forth  Officer  McWatters'  great  worth  as  a  philan- 
thropist. 

"HANDSOME  AND  WELL-DESERVED  COMPLIMENT.  —  A  few  days  ago 
Officer  G.  S.  McWatters  was  surprised  by  a  request  to  attend  at  the  re?i- 
dence  of  Mrs.  John  A.  Kennedy,  the  President  of  the  Ladies'  Union  Relief 
Association.  There  he  was  presented  with  a  beautiful  gold  watch,  as  a 
token  of  recognition  of  the  valuable  work  done  by  him  in  assisting  the 
objects  of  the  society.  Ever  since  the  war  Officer  McWatters  has  devot- 
ed all  his  spare  hours  to  the  benefit  of  Union  soldiers  and  their  families. 
We  could  fill  columns  with  stories  of  his  work  and  its  good  results,  but 
have  only  room  to  say  that  no  man  of  equal  means  has  worked  so  hard 
and  so  successfully.  To  the  assistance  and  encouragement  of  that  noble 
institution,  the  Ladies'  Union  Aid  Society,  he  has  given  every  moment 
that  could  be  spared  from  his  official  duties.  It  is  a  fitting  and  graceful 
compliment,  when  such  ladies  as  Mrs.  Wm.  F.  Havemeyer,  Mrs.  Mar- 
shall O.  Roberts,  Mrs.  Kennedy,  and  others  of  similar  standing,  so  gener- 
ously recognize  the  faithful  services  of  their  co-laborer.  Of  course  Mr. 
McWatters  has  official  permission  to  accept  his  well-earned  present,  and 
long  may  he  live  to  wear  it." 


64  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

We  also  subjoin  the  following  from  the  Tribune,  inas- 
much as  it  makes  allusion  to  certain  benevolent  acts  and 
plans  of  Officer  McWatters,  to  which  we  have  riot  referred 
in  these  biographical  notes,  but  which  are  most  worthy 
of  record.  So  good  a  summary  is  the  Tribune's  article  of 
Officer  McWatters'  claims  upon  the  public  esteem  as  an 
active  philanthropist  up  to  the  period  of  its  date,  that  wo 
copy  it  entire,  though  it  embraces  several  matters  upon 
which  we  have  descanted  more  or  less  extendedly  in  these 
Notes :  — 

"It  is  always  gratifying  to  see  genuine  and  unpretending  merit  recog- 
nized and  honored.  We  are  therefore  specially  glad  to  record  the  fact 
that  the  Ladies'  Union  Relief  Association  of  this  city  have  recently,  \<y  the 
presentation  of  a  valuable  and  appropriate  gift,  so  recognized  and  honored 
the  services  rendered  by  Officer  G.  S.  McWatters  to  the  peculiar  cause 
of  benevolence  to  which  they  are  devoted.  The  gift  is  a  handsome  gold 
watch,  and  the  presentation  was  made  on  Thursday  evening,  the  23d  ii^t., 
by  the  President  of  the  Association,  Mrs.  John  A.  Kennedy,  at  her  resi- 
dence, No.  135  West  Twenty-Second  Street.  The  Ladies'  Union  Relief 
has  been  established  two  years.  It  was  instituted  with  a  view  to  the  relief 
of  sick  and  disabled  soldiers,  their  families,  widows,  or  orphans,  from 
the  evils  of  extreme  poverty.  Great  good  has  been  accomplished  l.y  t!ie 
Association ;  and,  in  its  peculiar  charity,  it  has  had  no  ally  more  effi- 
cient and  indefatigable  than-  Officer  McWatters.  Indeed,  from  the  very 
beginning  of  the  late  civil  war,  this  officer  has  consistently  and  faithfully 
devoted  himself  to  the  cause  of  the  Union  soldiers.  In  18G1  he  was  as- 
sociated with  the  late  Daniel  Carpenter  in  the  mission  of  raising  money 
from  the  police  force  for  the  support  of  the  families  of  policemen  who  hail 
gone  to  the  war.  In  1SG2  —  an  assessment  having  been  levied  on  the  po- 
lice force  for  the  purpose  of  raising  and  equipping  the  Metropolitan  Urig- 
ade  —  Officer  McWatters  subscribed  more  money  to  this  fund  than  any 
other  patrolman  on  the  force.  In  18G3,  when  our  military  hospitals 
around  Washington  and  elsewhere  were  in  great  need  of  lemons  for  tiie 
wounded  and  suffering  victims  of  battle.  Officer  McWatters  collected  six 
hundred  dollars  from  among  the  police  towards  supplying  this  want;  and 
the  lemons  so  procured  were  gratuitously  forwarded  to  the  hospitals  South 
and  West  by  Adams  Express  Company.  A  letter  of  thanks  from  Dr.  1M- 
lows,  representative  of  the  Sanitary  Commission,  was,  on  this  occasion, 
addressed  to  the  Police  Commissioners.  In  1803,  also,  Officer  McWatters 
was  a  member  of  the  little  band  of  police  officers  that  rescued  and  de- 
fended our  building  from  the  miscreants  who  attacked  it  during  the  July 
riots,  and  in  that  affray  he  was  badly,  wounded.  In  1864  he  was  one  of 
the  originators  of  the  New  York  Sanitary  Fair,  and  he  served  as  one  yf 
its  committees,  with  so  much  devotion  and  success  that  he  won  a  letter 


BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTES.  65 

of  thanks  from  Mrs.  Lane,  the  President  of  the  Fair,  Mrs.  Jessie  Benton 
Fremont,  and  Colonel  Le  Grand  Cannon.  Officer  McWatters,  it  should 
also  be  mentioned,  is  the  originator  of  the  Police  Mutual  Aid  Society,  a 
very  useful  institution,  founded  on  the  principle  of  fraternal  benevolence. 
The  society  has  served  as  a  model  for  similar  societies  —  of  firemen,  post- 
office  clerks,  and  other  bodies  of  men  all  over  the  country.  A  plan  of 
practical  benevolence  has  likewise  been  formed  and  matured  by  Officer 
McWatters  in  the  Masonic  Fraternity,  and  has  won  the  commendation 
of  some  of  the  highest  officials  in  that  organization.  These  facts  strongly 
attest  the  humane  spirit,  active  intelligence,  and  earnest  devotion  to  duty 
which  have  characterized  Officer  McWatters  in  a  highly  creditable  career  of 
practical  benevolence.  The  ladies  of  the  Union  Relief  Society  have  no  less 
justly  than  gracefully  acknowledged  the  worth  of  his  character  and  ser- 
vices, in  making  the  gift  we  have  recorded.  Every  lover  of  this  country, 
we  may  add,  and  every  friend  of  mankind,  will  naturally  wish  the  amplest 
success  to  all  these  workers  in  the  good  cause  of  charity." 

* 

THE  BELLEVUE  HOSPITAL  INIQUITY. 

Charity,  holy  though  the  poets  sing  her,  and  beautiful  the 
painters  picture  her  lineaments,  is,  after  all,  a  hag,  if  real; 
or  only  an  ideal  being,  at  best,  if  we  are  to  judge  her  by 
her  precious,  favored  children,  the  almoners  she  sometimes 
employs  to  dispense  her  bounties.  In  New  York  a  great 
many  vulgar  wretches  are,  from  time  to  time,  officially  con- 
nected with  the  charitable  institutions  under  control  of  the 
city  government.  Bellevue  Hospital  was,  in  1869,  the 
theatre  of  some  of  these  base  fellows'  operations. 

These  men  were  protected  by  the  "  Citizens  Associa- 
tion," so  called,  —  a  self-constituted  body  of  very  respecta- 
ble gentlemen,  whose  business  it  is  to  see  that  everything 
in  the  city  is  properly  conducted ;  gentlemen  of  high 
moral  tone,  the  hems  of  whose  phylacteries  (made  of 
invisible  or  abstract  "  great  moral  worth,"  "  solid  charac- 
ter," "  piety,"  "  good  standing  in  society,"  and  visible  and 
real  amounts  of  greenbacks,  all  interwoven  in  some  mys- 
terious way,  and  which  together  constitute  "  dignity," 
we  believe),  are  broad  enough  to  out-Pharisee  those 
marvelous  gentlemen  in  Christ's  time  who  made  Jeru- 
salem such  a  genial  place  of  residence,  with  their  "  long 
prayers." 


66  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

In  July.  1869, the  Citizens'  Association  published,  through 
the  newspapers  of  the  city,  what  they  called  the  result  of 
an  investigation  of  the  several  institutions  under  the  con- 
trol of  the  Commissioners  of  Charities  and  Corrections,  in 
which  they  assured  the  public  that  these  institutions  were 
all  properly  and  well  conducted,  and  felicitated  the  said 
public  that  the  said  institutions  were  in  charge  of  such 
high  toned  and  efficient  gentlemen  as  they  named. 

But  there  was  a  man  in  New  York,  who,  when  he  read 
the  Citizens'  Association's  manifesto,  thought  it  a  most 
astonishing  falsehood,  either  of  the  kind  known  as  a  lie, 
or  of  that  kind  which  people  tell  sometimes  when  they 
are  talking  of  things  about  which  they  know  nothing;  for 
his  duties  had  called  him  to  Bellevue  Hospital  on  sundry 
occasions,  and  he  had  there  witnessed,  with  his  own  eyes, 
sundry  things  which  made  his  blood  boil  with  indignation  ; 
and  when  he  read  the  manifesto  of  the  Citizens'  Associa- 
tion, he  determined  to  correct  it. 

Of  what  this  man  had  seen  at  Bellevue  Hospital,  some 
faint  conception  may  be  formed  from  the  following  facts: 
There  was  scarcely  a  bed  there,  in  any  of  the  wards, 
which  was  free  from  vermin ;  patients  who  took  most  care 
of  the  beds,  were  always  liable  to  get  lousy  in  the  water 
closets ;  only  a  single  clean  sheet  a  week  was  allowed,  no 
matter  how  filthy  a  bed  might  become  through  the  poor 
patient's  weak  misfortunes ;  the  blankets  were  dirty ;  to 
keep  the  coverlets  clean,  for  "  whited-sepulchre "  pur- 
poses, when  visitors  called,  they  were  taken  off  nights ; 
the  cooking  of  the  institution  was  done  by  a  drunken,  filthy 
cook,  and  was  served  to  the  patients  on  what  had  once  been 
tin  dishes,  but  had  been  so  often  polished  "  clean  "  that 
they  had  became  rusty  sheet-iron  plates  ;  the  "  orderlies," 
who  were  paid  to  attend  to  the  sick,  were  tyrannical,  and 
little  or  no  attention/ was  paid  to  the  complaints  of  the  suf- 
ferers. The  only  thing  a  poor  sick  man  had  to  sit  on  was 
a  stool,  with  a  seat  of  about  twelve  inches  by  fourteen 
inches .  in  size,  without  a  back  (and  most  of  tho  sick  had 


BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTES.  .     67 

weak  backs).  The  sick  poor,  picked  up  in  the  streets,  for 
example,  and  carried  there,  had  their  outer  garments 
taken  off,  and  were  put  to  bed  without  washing,  with  their 
under  clothes  on,  and  had  no  "  change  of  raiment "  till 
they  died  !  The  wards  were  cold  in  winter,  and  the  poor 
were  glad  of  even  their  filty  rags  to  keep  them  warm. 
Generally  the  bed  in  which  a  poor  fellow  died  remained 
as  he  left  it,  unchanged,  for  the  comfort  of  the  next  occu- 
pant and  corpse  !  But  this  is  quite  enough,  we  opine,  for 
the  reader's  entire  satisfaction. 

Of  course  this  "  Augean  stable  "  needed  cleansing,  and 
the  Citizens'  Association  needed  enlightening,  or  reform- 
ing, whichever  is  the  proper  term  in  the  case,  and  that 
man  to  whom  we  have  alluded  knew  how  to  do  it.  The 
Tribune  and  Evening  Post,  when  informed  of  the  true 
state  of  affairs,  cheerfully  gave  space  in  their  columns  for 
the  facts,  and  appealed  to  the  Citizens'  Association  to  re- 
vise their  work  of  voluntary  report-making.  We  have 
before  us  a  copy  of  the  Evening  Post  of  date  September 
1,  1869,  containing  a  long  editorial  article  on  "  Bellevue 
'Hospital,"  mostly  made  up  of  a  letter  (which  was  written^ 
by  a  poor,  disabled  soldier,  then  "  confined"  in  Bellevue 
Hospital),  setting  forth  some  of  the  luxuries,  conveniences,, 
the  neatness,  etc.,  enjoyed  at  Bellevue  Hospital.  (It  ap- 
pears that  the  only  decent  thing  connected  with  the  hos- 
pital then,  was  the  medical  care  which  was  pronounced 
excellent.) 

The  article  alluded  to,  called  on  the  Citizens'  Associa- 
tion "  which,  by  a  recent  publication,  has  made  itself  in 
some  sort  responsible  for  the  good  management  of  the  city 
charities,"  to  "  investigate  "  the  matter  (out  of  courtesy 
it  ought  to  have  said,  "  re-investigate,"  but  it  didn't). 

The  secretary  of  the  Citizens'  Association  visited  one 
of  the  editors  of  a  city  paper,  and  stated  that  Bellevue 
Hospital  was  the  only  institution  under  the  Commissioners 
of  Charities  and  Corrections  which  he  had  not  personally 
visited  !  and  after  two  weeks'  delay,  the  Citizens'  Associa- 
5 


68  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

tion  sent  a  committee  of  investigation  to  the  hospital,  and 
found  everything  all  right,  of  course,  and  drew  up  a 
report,  which,  however,  was  never  published  ;  for  when 
they  presented  the  same  for  publication,  the  wary  editors 
required  that  the  report,  if  it  were  to  appear  in  their  col- 
umns, should  be  followed  by  affidcivits  of  proper  parties, 
showing  that  the  iniquities  complained  of  existed  at  Belle- 
vue  Hospital  when  the  complaints  were  made. 

The  result  was,  that  reforms  so  much  needed  at  Bellevue 
Hospital  were  made  there ;  for  which  hosts  of  patients  have 
since  been  grateful.  It  is  said  that  the  authorities  of  the 
hospital  offered  a  hundred  dollars  reward  for  the  person 
who  wrote,  or  instigated  the  writing,  of  the  various  letters 
to  the  press,  exposing  the  state  of  things  there,  and  which 
wrought  the  reform.  But  they  were  not  successful  at 
the  time  in  discovering  their  enemy,  and  the  poor  patients' 
friend ;  for  the  bringing  to  light,  and  subjecting  of  these 
outrages  at  Believue  Hospital  to  public  condemnation,  was 
one  of  Officer  McWatters'  many  silent  Good  Samaritan 
deeds,  and  he  did  not  intend  to  have  them  or  the  public 
know  who  wrought  it.  Besides,  the  officials  were  power- 
ful, and  might  do  him  great  harm,  in  their  indignation  at 
his  exposure  of  their  wickedness,  and  it  would  not  have 
been  wise  in  him  to  act  too  openly.  But  time  enough  has 
passed  now,  we  presume,  to  calm  their  animosity ;  and  hav- 
ing possessed  ourselves  of  the  facts  without  Officer  McWat- 
ters' knowledge,  we  think  it  proper  that  the  credit  due 
him  in  this  matter  be  acknowledged  here. 

CONCLUSION. 

In  these  meagre  Biographical  Notes  we  have  done  but 
partial  justice  to  Officer  McWatters.  Our  readers  were 
duly  assured  that  no  attempt  would  be  made  by  us  to 
write  a  fitting  biography  of  the  man  ;  and  we  have  only, 
in  a  hasty  way,  and  in  a  manner  wholly  unsatisfactory  to 
ourselves,  alluded  to  certain  incidents  in  our  subject's  life, 
which  serve  to  stamp  him  as  a  man  far  above  the  average 


BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTES.  69 

of  even  good'  souls,  in  his  active,  practical  benevolence. 
But  it  is  often  in  little  things  that  the  generous  soul  de- 
monstrates itself  most  eloquently  —  in  the  usually  unre- 
marked, quiet  acts  of  a  man ;  and,  in  our  judgment,  a 
letter  from  Officer  McWatters,  which,  in  our  search  of  the 
public  journals  for  most  of  the  material  of  these  Notes, 
we  found  in  the  Evening  Mail  of  October  23,  1869,  be- 
speaks for  him  as  much  respect  from  the  good  and  charita- 
bly inclined  as  anything  he  ever  did. 

We  judge  from  the  opening  sentence  of  the  letter,  that 
some  "  good  enough  "  fellow,  "  S.  W.  H.  C.,"  soft  of  heart, 
perhaps,  but  limited  in  judgment,  had  found  fault,  through 
the  columns  of  the  Mail,  with  the  poor  organ-grinders' 
"  plying  their  vocation  "  on  the  public  streets.  Of  course 
there  was  nobody  in  all  the  great  metropolis  to  come  to 
their  defence,  except  some  man  like  Officer  McWatters. 
And  so  he  came,  it  seems,  seasonably.  The  letter  shows 
not  only  the  tender,  generous  spirit  of  the  man,  but  his 
ripe  good  judgment  and  comprehensive  view  of  things 
as  well,  and  is  worthy  of  preservation  here  in  these  pages, 
along  with  the  masterly  efforts  of  his  pen,  which,  in  "  Knots 
Untied,"  have  not  only  given  us,  —  his  present  readers, — 
the  liveliest  gratification  by  the  mysteries  they  unfold  in 
a  lucid  style,  but  have  made  one  of  the  best  possible 
records  of  certain  phases  of  now  current  life,.for  the  in- 
formation of  the  future  historian. 

The  old  Romans  (as  well  as  other  peoples)  had  their  se- 
cret police  service  ;  and  how  interesting  it  would  be  to  us, 
in  these  far  oif  centuries,  to  read  of  their  deeds  in  the 
empire,  or  during  the  kingdom  of  Rome.  History,  for 
the  most  part,  is  made  up  of  the  deeds  of  great  con- 
querors, etc.  We  know  too  little  of  the  domestic  and  "  hid- 
den life  "  of  the  past.  But  the  future  historian  of  these 
times  will  have  all  the  materiel  his  ambition  can  desire  for 
weaving  the  thread  of  his  story.  And  what  a  resume  of 
crimes  and  outrages  of  all  kinds  will  that  of  the  19th  cen- 
tury be  for  the  historian  of  the  40th  century  to  make  ! 


70  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

The  letter  to  which  we  refer  above,  regarding  the  organ, 
grinders,  will  be  found  appended  hereto,  together  with 
some  other  matters  of  interest  regarding  Officer  McWat- 
ters,  which  we  have  collected  in  our  examination  of  the 
public  journals.  We  place  them  in  connection  with  these 
biographical  notes,  as  in  some  respects  presenting  our 
subject  in  a  more  graphic  manner  than  we  are  able  in  this 
hurried  writing,  to  make  him  known  to  the  great  reading 
public  of  his  adopted  country. 

The  concluding  paragraph  of  the  letter  referred  to  re- 
garding the  organ-grinders,  as  will  be  seen  by  reference 
to  it,  is,  "  Until  the  country  has  reached  out  her  helping 
hand  to  all  to  whom  she  owes  assistance  as  a  right,  it  is  in 
bad  taste  to  find  fault  with  the  mode  in  which  the  disabled 
soldier  tries  to  earn  a  living  for  his  family."  In  these 
words,  so  just  and  wise,  is  embraced  more  than  the  casual 
reader  will  be  apt  to  perceive.  They  are,  in  our  opinion, 
very  remarkable,  and  involve  a  great  principle,  one  which 
Officer  McWatters,  as  a  student  of  social  science,  as  we 
have  remarked  him,  must  clearly  understand. 

"  To  all  to  whom  she  owes  assistance  as  a  right,"  are 
words  eloquent  with  the  great  truth  of  social  statesman- 
ship which  they  suggest ;  which  is,  that  a  country,  a  gov- 
ernment, should  recognize  the  right  of  its  subjects  (or  com- 
ponent parts,  to  speak  more  decently,  for  there  is  a  hate- 
ful sound  ill  that  word  "  subjects  "  )  to  life ;  and  the  great 
moral  duty  of  all  these  parts  to  assist  each  other;  a 
duty  which  is  clear  and  imperative  in  the  nature  of 
things  (but  we  cannot  here  go  into  the  subtleties  of  the 
matter,  and  show  why) ;  a  duty,  however,  which  can  never 
be  fitly  performed  till  some  nation  or  people  are  so  or- 
ganized, politically  and  socially,  that  each  shall  receive  all 
he  merits  therein ;  till  the  labor  forces,  the  creators,  the 
only  really  worthy,  are  honored  and  protected ;  and  not,  as 
now,  when  the  chief,  villains  and  the  worthless  tyrants  live 
upon  the  fat  of  the  land,  enjoy  all  the  honors,  and  are 


BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTES.  71 

shielded  by  the  laws  in  robbing  from  and  exploiting  upon 
the  poor,  the  laboring  classes. 

Healthful  and  buoyant  of  spirit,  Officer  McWatters 
doubtless  has  many  years  of  active  life  yet  to  enjoy.  The 
record  of  his  past  is  abundant  assurance  that  his  future 
will  be  just,  generous,  brave  in  good  deeds,  sternly  and 
patiently  laborious,  and  benevolent  to  all  mankind ;  and 
when  he  ceases  to  be,  when  the  organized  atoms  which 
make  what  we  call  the  man,  and  are  discriminated  by  us 
from  all  other  organized  atoms  as  "  McWatters/'  shall  have 
been  resolved  into  their  original  conditions,  and  his  indi- 
viduality is  lost  forever  in  the  ceaseless  processes  of  con- 
tinuing creation,  his^good  deeds  shall  live  on  still,  and 
make  for  him  a  place  in  the  reverence  of  those  who  honor 
good  works  far  above  that  of  most  men ;  above  that  of  all 
the  talkers,  the  self-elected  teachers,  who  heed  not  their 
own  doctrines,  however  noble  these  be.  One  such  man  as 
Officer  McWatters  is  worth  more  than  an  army  of  self-pro- 
claimed saints,  who  do  nothing  but  prattle- about  virtue, 
and  preach,  to  use  their  own  figure  of  speech,  but  live 
not  out  in  their  lives,  nor  exemplify  in  their  deaths,  "  Christ 
and  Him  crucified ; "  but  who  think  more  of  Christ  on  the 
Cross,  in  the  "  triumph  of  faith,"  than  of  the  nobler  Christ- 
come-down-from-the-Cross,  and  still  battling,  with  untiring 
spirit,  against  the  wrongs  which  men  do  to  one  another. 

With  this  hasty  sketch,  and  the  appendices  which  we 
may  see  fit  to  make  (as  before  indicated),  we  leave  Officer 
George  S.  McWatters, — the  kind  of  heart,  the  merciful,  the 
dutiful,  the  intelligent  and  honest  man ;  the  patriot  of 
the  true  type  ;  the  practical  and  great  philanthropist, — in 
the  hands  of  our  readers,  trusting  that  some  able  biog- 
rapher will  yet  write  his  history,  in  a  style  and  with 
a  particularity  commensurate  with  Officer  McWatters' 
nobility  of  character  and  multifold  great  good  works  in 
the  cause  of  humanity. 


72  KNOTS  UNTIED. 


THE  ORGAN-GRINDERS. 

A  WORD  IN  THEIR  BEHALF  —  LETTER  FROM  OFFICER  MCWATTERS  (REFERRED 
TO  IN  THE  BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTES)  — A  SAD  STORY  —  WHY  THE  ASYLUMS 
CANNOT  BE  HOMES  FOR  ALL  THE  DISABLED. 

To  THE  EDITOR  OF  THE  EVENING  MAIL  :  The  communica- 
tion signed  "  S.  W.  H.  C.,"  in  your  issue  of  the  19th, 
breathes  a  good  spirit  towards  our  sick  and  disabled  sol- 
diers, but  evidently  was  not  written  understandingly.  By 
far  the  greater  number  of  the  street  organ-grinders,  clad 
in  soldiers'  garb,  have  been  true  and  honest  soldiers,  but 
being  husbands  and  fathers,  they  canUot  take  advantage  of 
the  asylums.  The  article  on  this  subject  was  in  all  respects 
correct.  Until  the  nation  furnishes  homes  for  this  class  of 
our  disabled  soldiers,  —  homes  which  will  not  necessitate 
their  parting  from  their  little  families,  dearer  to  them  by 
far  than  their  own  personal  comfort,  —  we  must  look  for 
such  street  exhibitions  as  we  see,  and  which  are  not  dis- 
graceful to  the  soldier,  whatever  they  may  be  to  his  coun- 
try. That  some  of  these  are  impostors,  I  do  not  doubt ;  but 
it  is  the  duty  of  the  police  to  satisfy  themselves  who  are 
and  who  are  not,  and  to  treat  them  accordingly.  On  the 
other  hand,  there  are  no  more  deserving  objects  of  charity 
in  the  world  than  some  of  these  are. 

In  evidence  of  the  reluctance  which  those  who  have 
family  ties  feel  in  entering  any  of  the  asylums,  I  now  n;ir- 
rate  you  an  incident.  Some  six  months  ago  I  found  a  poor 
fellow  in  this  city  who  had  lost  his  health  in  the  army,  in 
which  he  had  served  four  years.  He  had  just  been  sent 
out  of  hospital  incurable  — a  consumptive.  He  had  a  wife 
and  four  children,  the  eldest  a  boy  of  twelve,  a  cripple,  and 
three  little  girls.  Some  one  of  the  customary  blunders  at 
Washington  had  hitherto  delayed  his  pension.  The  sole 
income  of  the  family,  when  I  called,  was  what  the  mother 
earned  by  scrubbing.  The  father  had  evidently  not  long 


THE   ORGAN-GRINDERS.  73 

to  live,  and  poverty  was  hastening  him  to  the  grave. 
When  I  called,  and  saw  how  things  were,  I  advised  him 
to  go  to  the  Home,  to  which  I  would  find  means  to  send 
him.  He  said  he  would  consult  his  wife.  He  did  so,  and 
then  said  that  he  had  resolved  to  go ;  that  he  was  only  eat- 
ing the  bread  his  poor  wife  earned,  and  which  his  little 
ones  needed.  I  took  the  necessary  steps,  and  received 
from  General  Butler  the  coupons  for  his  transportation. 
By  this  time  I  had  had  several  interviews  with  his  family ; 
and  seeing  how  much  misery  the  threatened  separation 
was  likely  to  entail,  —  for  they  were  deeply  attached  — 
father,  mother,  and  children  —  to  each  other,  —  I  resolved 
to  try  and  prevent  it.  To  this  end  I  consulted  Mrs.  J.  A. 
Kennedy,  President  of  the  Ladies'  Union  Relief  Associa- 
tion, who,  having  heard  the  pitiable  case,  consented  to 
extend  the  aid  of  the  institution  to  the  family,  that  they 
might  stay  together  as  long  as  the  father  lived.  Freighted 
with  this  news,  I  went  to  the  miserable  home.  They  were 
waiting  for  me  ;  had  been  sitting,  weeping  in  company  for 
hours,  expecting  the  separation.  I  cannot  describe  to  you 
the  joy  that  filled  that  poor  home  when  I  told  them  that 
the  father  was  not  to  go.  Their  joy  was  more  touching 
than  even  the  preceding  grief. 

Had  "  S.  W.  H.  C."  been  with  me  then,  or  had  he  seen  so 
many  of  just  such  cases  as  I  have  seen,  he  would  be  much 
slower  in  coming  to  judgment  of  the  poor  organ-grinder. 
For  it  is  this  love  of  wife  and  children,  which  we  honor,  or 
ought  to  honor,  which  sends  the  married  soldier  on  the 
street  to  beg  in  this  way,  rather  than  take  life  easy,  and 
"  fight  his  battles  o'er  and  o'er  again  "  in  an  asylum.  The 
soldier  above  referred  to  is  still  alive,  thanks  to  the  assist- 
ance given  him  by  General  Butler  and  the  good  ladies  of 
the  Association. 

The  asylums,  as  they  are  at  present  ordered,  cannot 
meet  cases  like  these ;  but.  they  merit  help,  and  should 
have  it  in  some  fashion.  The  Ladies'  Union  Relief  Asso- 
ciation does  much  to  keep  a  great  number  off  the  street 


74  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

who  would  otherwise  present  much  more  disagreeable  pic- 
tures than  the  organ-grinders  to  the  eyes  of  your  sensitive 
correspondent ;  but  their  means  are  limited.  They  cannot 
reach  all  who  need.  Until  the  country  has  reached  out 
her  helping  hand  to  all  to  whom  she  owes  assistance  as  a 
right,  it  is  in  bad  taste  to  find  fault  with  the  mode  in  which 
the  disabled  soldier  tries  to  earn  a  living  for  his  family. 

Me  WAITERS. 


TEN  DOLLARS   A   MONTH  :    A  STORY  OF    GRIEF 
AND   JOY. 

IT  is  a  painful  comment  upon  the  state  of  society,  or  the 
character  of  our  civilization,  that  our  most  cherished  liter- 
ature, both  of  poetry  and  prose,  has  its  origin  in  human 
woes  and  wrongs.  "  Man's  inhumanity  to  man  Makes  count- 
less thousands  mourn."  Dickens,  with  all  his  wealth  of 
genius,  so  much  prized,  would  have  found  no  use  for  it  in 
a  decent  world,  unless,  perchance,  it  might  have  shone  as 
brightly  upon  the  face  of  Joy,  as  it  beamed  pathetically 
upon  the  tortured  visage  of  Misery.  Hood,  in  his  immor- 
tal "  Song  of  the  Shirt,"  and  the  "  Bridge  of  Sighs," 
and  in  many  other  of  his  verse  ;  Tennyson,  in  the  best 
of  his  poems;  Mrs.  Browning,  with  her  vast  power  of 
thought  and  feeling,  to  say  nothing  of  many  other  great 
writers  of  the  past  and  present;  our  own  blessed  poet 
Whittier,  etc.,  have  given  us  their  noblest  works  with 
pens  dipped  in  human  tears,  or  sharpened  by  human  suf- 
ferings. So,  too,  of  the  great  good  deeds  of  the  other 
philanthropists  —  the  Howards,  the  Nightingales,  the  Mc- 
Watterses.  They  could  only  have  had  their  origin  in  the 
wrongs  which  man  does  to  his  fellow-man  ;  in  the  outrages 
which  the  tyrant  classes  do  to  the  weaker ;  in  the  riot  of 
wars  for  governmental  supremacy  ;  in  the  sufferings  of  the 
outraged,  trampled  into  the  dust  by  the  powerful  robbers 


TEN   DOLLARS  A  MONTH.  75 

of  society  in  their  mad  greed  for  wealth,  or  cheated  by 
pious  and  talented  hypocrites  out  of  their  moral  as  well  as 
physical  rights. 

Society  should  be  so  ordered,  as  it  might  readily  be, 
that  all  the  pathetic  literature  now  so  much  cherished, 
would  be  obnoxious  to  us,  as  belonging  to  a  state  of 
things  which  once  existed,  but  which  all  were  anxious  to 
forget;  when  only  the  songs  of  joy  should  ftnd  birth, 
and  when  the  basilar  principles  of  Christianity  should 
be  practically  recognized,  and  everywhere  expressed  in 
our  institutions,  or  organic  social  life.  But  this  we  cannot 
hope  for  till  superstition  shall  be  done  away  with,  the 
"  money-changers  "  driven  from  the  porches  of  our  "  tem- 
ples ; "  the  poor  and  ignorant  made  aware  of  their  rights, 
and  earnest  in  claiming  them ;  and  the  tyrant  classes  come 
to  learn  the  falsity  of  their  chief  "  motto,"  namely,  that  'tis 
"  better  to  rule  in  hell  than  serve  in  heaven." 

We  had  thought  to  give  in  the  foregoing  Biographical 
Notes  some  touching  instances  of  the  experiences  of  the 
good  women  of  the  "  Ladies'  Union  Relief  Association  " 
and  Officer  McWatters,  in  their  noble  work  of  succoring 
the  needy,  and  binding  up  the  wounds  of  the  suffering. 
"We  have  before  us,  furnished  by  the  kindness  of  a  friend, 
a  partial  record  of  the  Association's  deeds  (never  intended 
for  publication),  freighted  with  notes  of  bitter  sorrows 
which  they  have  assuaged,  and  which,  written  out,  would 
fill  pathetic  volumes  ;  but  we  have  no  space  for  them  here. 
One,  however,  so  enchains  our  interest  that  we  cannot  for- 
bid ourselves  to  recite  it  here,  as  an  exemplary  instance, 
which,  if  multiplied  in  his  mind  by  hundreds  and  thou- 
sands, will  give  the  reader  something  like  an  adequate 
understanding  of  the  vast  work  of  kind  and  tender  minis- 
trations which  these  philanthropists  have  done,  and  are 
constantly  doing. 

Officer  McWatters  had  two  or  three  times  visited  a 
poor,  sick,  emaciated  veteran  soldier,  by  the  name  of  Pat- 
rick O'Brien.  Of  course  Patrick  could  earn  nothing  for 


76  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

.  his  own  support,  and  depended  wholly  upon  what  little  his 
good  wife  (a  comparatively  young  and  fragile  woman) 
could  earn  by  washing  and  scrubbing,  and  which  she 
shared  with  him  and  their  three  young  children.  McWat. 
ters  was  greatly  moved  by  the  condition  of  this  family. 
He  saw  that  the  wife  could  not  much  longer  sustain  the 
burden  she  was  bravely  attempting  to  bear,  and  finally  ad- 
vised that,  as  the  best  thing  to  be  done,  the  veteran  should 
be  sent,  at  the  expense  of  the  Ladies'  Union  Relief  Associa- 
tion, to  the  Soldiers'  Home  at  Dayton,  Ohio.  This  was 
consented  to  by  the  soldier  and  his  suffering  wife,  but  not 
without  great  reluctance..  The  sympathy  of  sorrows  is 
tenderly  cohesive  and  sensitive.  After  leaving  with  the 
family  some  money  for  their  aid,  and  fixing  upon  a  time, 
two  or  three  days  thereafter,  to  call  with  a  carriage,  and 
take  the  soldier  to  the  cars,  Officer  McWatters  bade  good 
day  to  the  family.  They  expected  him  to  come  for  the 
veteran  in  the  night,  for  the  poor  man  preferred  travelling 
then, as  he  got  no  sleep  in  the  night  season. 

Officer  McWatters  was  so  greatly  impressed  by  the  in- 
nate pride,  high  spirit,  and  profound  love  of  the  soldier 
for  his  family,  so  deeply  reciprocated  by  them,  that  he 
could  not  bear  to  see  that  poor  household  separated,  and 
at  once  interested  himself  to  get  an  allowance  for  the  sol- 
dier from  the  Association,  and  thus  enable  him  to 
stay  with  his  family ;  and  he  succeeded  in  procuring  ten 
dollars  a  month  for  him,  assurance  of  which  he  received 
by  letter,  just  at.  the  time  appointed  for  taking  the  soldier 
from  his  poor  home  to  the  cars.  He  went  to  bear  the 
good  news  to  the  family.  It  was  so  late  when  he  got  to 
their  miserable  little  room  (for  one  room,  one  bed,  served 
them  all),  that  they  had  retired,  thinking  that  he  would 
not  come  that  night.  He  rapped,  and  announced  his 
name,  and  the  poor  wife  arose  from  the  bed,  and  ad- 
mitted him.  The  poor  children  awakened  before  he  could 
announce  the  good  news,  and  supposing  that  he  had  come 
to  take  away  their  father,  rushed  off  from  their  couch,  and 


TEN  DOLLARS   A  MONTH.  79 

sobbing  and  weeping,  implored  him  not  to  take  their  father 
off,  the  violence  of  their  and  their  mother's  grief  prevent- 
ing Officer  McWatters  explaining  his  present  errand  for 
the  space  of  a  full  minute  or  two.  The  poor  soldier,  moved 
by  his  family's  grief,  had  risen  from  that  one  bed,  and  added 
his  prayer  to  the  rest,  for  something  else  possible  to  be 
done  than  the  sending  of  him  away. 

At  last  Officer  McWatters  succeeded  in  quelling  the 
passionate  storm  of  wailing  and  grief  for  an  instant,  which 
he  seized  to  tell  them  his  errand  in.  It  is  not  probable 
that  pen  or  pencil  could  ever  do  faintest  justice  to  the  pic- 
ture of  the  gleeful,  tearful  gratitude  which  that  family 
exhibited  in  their  sudden  revulsion  from  broken-hearted 
grief  to  wild  joy,  as  McWatters  finished  reading  the  letter 
he  had  received  assuring  the  monthly  allowance. 

"  Ten  dollars  a  month  !  "  A  pitiable  sum,  yet  it  brought 
joy  to  that  whole  household  at  that  dead  hour  of  night, 
in  the  city  of  mingled  sorrows,  and  vanities,  and  debauch- 
eries, when  hundreds  and  thousands  of  the  pampered  sons 
and  daughters  of  luxury  (worthless  members  of  society) 
were  wasting  each  more  than  ten  dollars  an  hour  in  worse 
than  useless  ways,  —  in  riot  and  "  ribald  revelry." 

The  poor  man  remained  with  .  his  family  nearly  two 
years  ;  when  he  died,  and  was  buried  by  the  Association. 
Upon  his  death  his  grateful  widow  wrote  to  the  ladies  a 
letter  (a  copy  of  which  was  taken  from  the  archives  of  the 
Association  without  their  special  knowledge,  it  must  be 
confessed,  but  by  u  no  robbery  "  after  all),  and  which  we 
think  most  worthy  a  place  here,  in  honor  of  the  good  ladies 
whose  charities  it  acknowledges. 

"  NEW  YORK,  Mar  3,  1P70. 
"  To  the  Ladies  Union  Relief  Association  : 

"  LADIES  :  It  is  my  painful  duty  to  inform  you  of  the  death  of  my  hus- 
band, Patrick  O'Brien.  Allow  me  to  express  the  deep  sense-  of  gratitude 
that  I  and  my  children  feel  towards  your  Association  for  the  assistance  you 
have  generously  extended  to  us  during  the  last  two  years  of  his  illness. 
The  value  of  that  assistance  has  been  enhanced  by  the  manner  of  its  be- 


80  KNOTS   UNTIED. 


Mr.  McWatters,  the  kind  dispenser  of  your  bounty,  has  smoothed 
to  the  grave  the  pilgrimage  of  a  proud  spirit  ;  but  for  the  many  delicate 
assurances  he  gave  my  husband  that  your  generous  assistance  was  not 
charity,  but  the  poor  soldier's  rightful  due,  the  last  years  of  his  life  would 
have  been  embittered  by  a  sad  sense  of  destitution  and  dependence. 

"  My  husband  served  the  republic  for  nearly  four  years,  during  which 
service  he  was  maimed  in  its  defence,  and  died  at  last  of  disease  contracted 
in  the  service.  He  could  not  have  borne  the  thought  that  he  and  his  lit- 
tle ones  were  subsisting  on  the  cold  charity  of  the  world,  and  thanks  to 
the  delicate  tact  with  which  your  aid  was  bestowed  his  mind  was  smoothed, 
and  his  last  days  on  earth  made  peaceable. 

"  Please  accept  the  sincere  gratitude  and  blessings  of  a  soldier's  widow 
and  three  children.  MAKY  O'BRIEN." 

This  scene  of  the  poor  family,  with  their  single  bed,  and 
as  they  stood  in  their  night-clothes  before  Officer  McWat- 
ters, as,  choked  with  mingled  feelings  of  sympathy  and  a 
sense  of  the  joy  he  was  about  to  give  them,  he  read,  with 
tears,  the  welcome  news,  ought  to  be  put  upon  canvas,  and 
hung  upon  the  walls  of  all  the  haunts  of  sin,  the  gold-room 
of  the  Exchange,  the  brokers'  offices,  bankers',  princely 
merchants'  ware-rooms,  sectarian  churches,  and  the  other 
meeting-places  of  pride  and  robbery  throughout  the  city, 
and  underneath  it  should  be  written,  "  A  chapter  of  our 
civilization  in  the  19th  century."  S. 


MACK  AND   THE  VETERAN. 

A   TOUCHING    TALE  —  THE    POETRY    AXD    PATHOS    OF   BARE    FEET. 

THE  following,  taken  from  the  New  York  Dispatch  of 
October  16,  1870,  is  not  only  to  the  point  as  illustrating 
the  noble  traits  of  Officer  McWatters'  character,  but  is  too 
well  told  not  to  be  preserved  here.  We  think  best  to  make 
no  substitution  of  "  McWatters  "  in  the  place  of  the  familiar 
sobriquet  by  which  the  genial  writer  was  pleased  to  desig- 
nate him. 


MACK  AND  THE  VETERAN.  81 

"  In  one  of  the  big  public  institutions  set  apart  for  a 
branch  of  the  Municipal  Government  of  this  big,  over- 
grown city  of  ours,  there  is  one,  among  the  many  depart- 
ments of  this,  that,  and  the  other  thing,  presided  over  by 
our  friend  Mr.  Mack. 

Mr.  Mack  is  a  gentleman,  who,  though  old  in  years,  is 
not  old  in  infirmity,  and  he  walks  about  with  a  vim  and 
spirit  that  might  be  profitably  imitated  by  many  listless 
young  men  of  the  period.  • 

Besides  devoting  his  time  and  talents  to  his  official  posi- 
tion, he  takes  an  active  interest  in  everything  of  a  philan- 
thropic nature.  We  are  ignorant  of  the  number  of  societies 
which  have  these  objects  to  attain,  of  which  Mr.  Mack  is 
a  member ;  but  in  all  of  them  he  is  among  the  most 
active. 

Among  the  charitable  societies,  is  one  composed  of 
ladies,  who  attend  the  wants  of  disabled  soldiers,  their 
widows  and  orphans.  The  ladies  have  selected  our  friend 
Mr.  Mack  as  their  almoner,  and  his  office  is  visited  every 
day  by  scores  of  poor  people. 

On  a  late  visit  to  the  good  man,  we  found  a  poor  veteran 
just  approaching  his  desk. 

"  Mr.  Mack,  sir,"  said  the  man. 

"  That's  my  name  sir.     Take  a  seat." 

The  man  stepped  forward  briskly,  but  with  a  limp.  He 
was  sixty  years  of  age,  with  gray  hair,  shabbily  attired, 
lame  in  the  leg  and  arm,  and,  as  it  afterwards  appeared, 
one  half  of  his  right  /oot  gone ;  a  wreck  of  the  human 
form  divine,  but  with  much  manliness  left  about  him. 

"  What  is  your  business,  friend  ?  " 

"  That's  it,  sir ;  and  I'll  thank  you  if  you  can  do  it,"  he 
replied  cheerily,  as  he  handed  a  letter. 

"  You  want  to  go  to  New  London  ?  "  said  Mr.  Mack,  after 
reading  the  missive. 

"  That's  it,  sir ;  my  darter  lives  there.  I've  walked  all 
the  way  from  Philadelphia,  and  my  legs  have  kinder  give 


82  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

out.  One  of  them  ain't  of  much  account  anyway,  but  I've 
got  to  make  the  best  of  it." 

Mr.  Mack.  "  Were  you  a  soldier?  You  know  my  Imsi- 
ness  is  principally  with  soldiers,  although  I  should  be  glad 
to  assist  you  if  it  is  in  my  power." 

Veteran.  "  Well,  I  guess  so,  sir.  1  got  knocked  up  in 
this  kind  of  shape  doing  service  for  Uncle  Sam." 

He  raised  his  arm  with  difficulty,  and  pointed  to  his  leg. 

Mr.  Mack.     "  Have  you  youV  discharge  papers  ?  " 

Veteran.  "I'm  sorry  to  say  that  I  haven't  got  them 
with  me.  I  had  them  framed,  and  after  the  old  woman 
died  (tearfully),  I  sent  them  to  Mollie  for  safe-keeping. 
But  they're  honorable,  sir — they  are,  indeed." 

Mr.  Mack.  "  I  might  give  you  a  letter  that  would  in- 
sure you  an  entrance  to  the  Soldiers'  Home.  Would  you 
like  to  go  there  ?  " 

Veteran.  '•  O,  dear  !  no,  sir;  although  it  may  be  a  good 
enough  sort  of  a  place.  I've  got  a  home  with  my  darter 
Mollie,  who  is  well  married,  and  settled  in  the  place  that  I 
am  making  for ;  and  I  know  that  she  will  never  go  back  on 
the  old  man,  for  she  used  to  think  too  much  of  me,  and  be 
too  delighted  to  see  me  when  I  came  home  from  a  long 
voyage  in  happier  days.  O,  no,  sir  !  (brushing  the  tears 
from  his  eyes  with  his  coat  sleeve),  Mollie  will  make  room 
for  me." 

During  the  colloquy,  Mr.  Mack  was  busily  engaged  in 
writing  a  note,  and  after  finishing  it,  went  into  an  adjoining 
room  to  obtain  a  necessary  signature.  He  returned  with- 
out getting  it,  and  was  obliged  to  delay  the  veteran  until 
the  official,  whose  name  to  the  letter  was  wanted,  came  in. 

Mr.  Mack.  "  You  will  have  to  wait  a  little  while  until  I 
can  get  this  note  signed." 

Veteran.  "  All  right,  sir ;  never  mind  me  —  I'm  used  to 
waiting.  I  learned  that  some  time  ago,  when  I  waited 
through  the  long  watch  at  sea,  till  my  turn  came  to  climb 
into  my  bunk,  and  when  I  was  on  post  in  the  army,  till  the 
relief  guard  came  around ;  and  when  I've  been  away  from 


MACK   AND   THE   VETERAN.  83 

home,  —  in  times  past,  you  know,  I  had  a  home  of  my  own 
once,  sir,  —  I've  waited  for  the  day  to  roll  around  when  I 
would  see  my  wife  and  Mollie  (who  was  a  little  bit  of  a 
thing  then)  again.  And  all  I'm  waiting  for  now  is  the 
time  when  my  shattered  old  hulk  shall  be  laid  aside  as 
used-up  timber  ;  and  all  I  hope  for,  when  that  time  comes, 
is,  that  my  darter  Mollie  may  be  alongside,  and  I  shan't 
mind  it  much." 

Mr.  Mack.     "  Are  you  a  native  of  Connecticut  ?  " 
Veteran.     "  No,  sir ;    I'm  a  Baltimorean.     I   Avas   born 
opposite  the  old  Independent  engine-house,  in  Gay  Street, 
and  my  father  and  mother  before  me  were  born  in  the  city, 
too,  for  that  matter." 

Mr.  Mack.  "  A  great  many  from  your  State  fought  in 
the  Southern  army." 

Veteran.  "  That's  so,  sir ;  they  did.  But  how  do  you 
think  it  was  possible  for  me  to  do  so,  after  having  followed 
the  old  Stars  and  Stripes  through  the  Mexican  war,  and 
having  sailed  under  its  protection  for  going  on  thirty  years  ? 
O,  no,  sir !  I  had  too  much  love  for  it.  Why,  sir,  every 
port  I  ever  entered  respected  that  flag.  They  couldn't 
help  it ;  besides,  they  knew  they  had  to  !  "  (Drawing  him- 
self up  proudly.) 

Mr.  Mack.  "  Did  you  enlist  in  a  Maryland  regiment  ?  " 
Veteran.  "  No,  sir.  I'll  tell  you  all  about  it.  You  see 
when  the  Massachusetts  regiments  passed  through  Balti- 
more, the  brig  that  I  sailed  on  had  just  returned  from  a 
voyage  to  Rio,  and  we  were  unloading  in  Smith's  dock, 
near  Centre  Market.  The  soldiers  had  disembarked  from 
the  cars  at  the  Philadelphia  depot,  and  were  marching 
along  Pratt  Street,  towards  the  Washington  station,  when 
the  attack  was  made  on  them.  As  I  looked  from  the  deck 
of  the  brig  I  saw  the  old  flag  pushing  and  dodging  along 
the  street,  with  a  shower  of  stones  and  bricks  flying  around 
it,  and  I  heard  the  sound  of  pistol-shots  and  the  hissing 
and  hooting  of  the  mob.  I  happened  to  turn  around,  and 
I  saw  the  same  colors  proudly  flapping  in  the  wind  from 


84  KNOTS    UNTIED. 

the  mast  head,  and  I  tell  you  it  was  too  much  for  me  —  I 
couldn't  stand  it.  I  went  to  the  captain,  almost  choking, 
and  I  told  him  I  wanted  an  order  for  my  pay ;  I  was  going 
home.  I  was  the  second  mate  of  the  brig ;  and  the  captain 
was  a  little  wrathy  at  the  idea,  for  he  wanted  me  to  stay 
and  help  him  superinlend  the  unloading  of  that  part  of 
the  cargo  that  was  to  be  left  on  the  dock*  before  dropping 
down  to  Fell's  Point  the  next  day.  I  told  him  I  must  leave ; 
and  as  he  had  no  further  hold"  on  me,  lie  had  to  give  me 
the  order.  The  owners  were  surprised,  too ;  but  after  some 
talk  they  paid  me,  and  I  went  home  to  the  old  woman. 
She  said, '  You  look  excited ;  what's  the  matter  with  you  ? ' 
1  Well,'  said  I, '  1  am  going  to  enlist  in  the  Union  army,  and 
try  and  help  to  pay  these  fellows  that  fired  on  the  Ameri- 
can colors  in  Pratt  Street  to-day,  back  in  their  own  coin.' 
'  That's  right,'  said  she  ;  1 1  wish  they'd  let  me  carry  a  gun, 
and  I'd  go  with  you.'  And  I  wished  for  once  in  my  life 
that  Mollie  was  a  boy ;  for  I  might  have  made  a  drummer 
out  of  her,  anyway,  for  she  was  too  small  for  anything  else. 
Well,  you  know ;  —  but  I  hope  I'm  not  tiring  you  with  my 
long  yarn,  sir?" 

Mr.  Mack.     "  No ;  go  on  with  it." 

Veteran.  "  They  were  not  raising  any  regiments  in 
Maryland ;  and  I  fell  in  with  a  Hoosier,  who  was  going 
home  to  Madison  to  enlist,  and  I  promised  hfm  ten  dollars 
if  he  would  get  me  past  the  surgeons.  I'm  sixty-six  years 
old ;  and  you  know  I  was  too  old  for  them,  because  they 
were  more  particular  in  the  early  part  of  the  war  than 
they  were  later.  Well,  when  we  got  to  Madison,  to  make 
matters  sure,  I  went  and  got  my  hair  dyed  ;  and  as  luck 
would  have  it,  the  recruiting  officers  were  a  little  drunk, 
and  I  passed  without  any  difficulty,  though  one  of  them 
asked  me  how  old  I  was,  and  I  told  them  a  lie,  God  for- 
give me,  that  1  was  thirty-nine  years  old  !  I  went  into  the 
Army  of  the  Cumberland,  and  atChickamauga  a  shell  burst 
near  me,  and  I  was  knocked  up  in  the  way  you  see." 

Mr.  Mack.    "  You  have  served  with  General  Howard  ?  " 


MACK  AND  THE  VETERAN.  87 

Veteran.  "  Yes,  sir ;  and  a  good,  noble-hearted  man  he 
was,  too,  sir.  There  was  no  airs  about  him.  He  was  just 
like  one  of  the  boys, —  moving  around  among  the  men  in 
a  blue  army  blouse  and  the  regulation  cap,  with  a  kind 
word  for  everybody ;  and  when  there  was  a  battle,  wher- 
ever there  was  the  most  danger  you  were  sure  to  find 
him." 

Mr.  Mack  stepped  out,  and  returned  with  the  letter, 
which  he  handed  to  the  old  veteran,  with  some  money, 
which  he  took  with  some  hesitation,  saying,  that  all  he 
wanted  was  to  get  a  passage  to  New  London,  and  Mollie 
would  attend  to  his  wants. 

"  When  I  get  there,"  said  he,  "  Mollie  will  find  me  some 
clothes  to  wear,  for  these  are  getting  rather  soiled ;  and 
I'm  kind  of  ashamed  to  be  seen  in  them,  for  I've  been  used 
to  wearing  a  little  better." 

Mr.  Mack  told  him  that  he  only  gave  him  the  money  to 
buy  some  food  on  the  way,  and  keep  him  strong  enough  to 
look  for  his  Mollie  when  he  arrived  at  his  destination. 

"  That's  so,  sir,"  said  he ;  "  I  ain't  got  as  much  as  will 
buy  me  a  good  supper.  When  I  left  .Philadelphia,  I  didn't 
have  enough  to  pay  my  passage,  and  I  have  made  many  a 
longer  march.  I  didn't  think  it  was  much  to  walk  a  hun- 
dred miles,  so,  sooner  than  beg  my  passage,  I  thought  I'd 
walk  it.  My  lame  leg  made  it  rather  harder  than  I  ex- 
pected, and  I  made  slow  work  of  it.  I  soon  spent  what 
money  I  had  for  meals,  and  I  was  obliged  to  part  with  a 
bull's-eye  watch,  that  cost  me  twelve  dollars  a  good  many 
years  ago.  It  was  pretty  old,  and  I  only  got  a  dollar  and 
a  half  for  it.  Bull's-eye  watches  ain't  worth  as  much  as 
they  used  to  be.  I  sold  my  old  pocket-book,  too ;  but  as 
it  didn't  have  anything  in  it,  it  was  no  good  to  me.  I  got 
my  breakfast  this  morning,  and  have  a  small  balance  in 
my  pocket,  off  of  my  spectacles,  that  I  sold  to  an  old  fellow 
that  they  suited  exactly;  and  I  tell  you  I  missed  them  this 
morning  when  I  tried  to  read  a  newspaper  with  an  account 
of  the  war  in  Europe.  I  think  that  war  is  going  to  do  our 
6  4* 


8S  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

people  some  goed.  They'll  want  some  of  our  corn  and 
wheat,  and  I  tell  you  the  crops  did  look  amazing  fine  in  the 
country  that  I  passed  through.  I'm  getting  interested  iv 
the  way  things  are  going  on  on  the  other  side  of  the  water,, 
and  I  think  I'll  buy  a  pair  of  specs  with  some  of  this  money 
you  gave  me,  and  read  to-day's  news  about  it." 

"  Do  you  know/'  said  Mr.  Mack,  "  that  you  are  entitled 
to  seventy-five  dollars  for  the  loss  of  your  foot,  under  the 
law  to  supply  soldiers  with  cork  legs,  when  they  have  BUS' 
tained  the  injury  in  the  line  of  duty  ?  " 

"  Well,  sir,"  said  he,  "  I  didn't  know  it,  but  you  can  see 
whether  I  am  entitled  to  it ;  "  and  he  pulled  off  his  boot, 
and  showed  the  stump  of  his  foot,  with  the  same  pride  that 
we  remember  to  have  seen  a  general  officer  display  the 
stump  of  his  arm  lost  in  action. 

The  exposure  showed  that  he  was  without  socks,  his  foot 
being  wrapped  up  in  a  handkerchief. 

While  he  was  exhibiting  his  stump,  we  observed  Mr. 
Mack  pulling  his  shoes  off,  and  we  expected  to  see  him 
display  a  wounded  foot  also,  when  he  hastily  pulled  off  his 
socks ;  but  instead  of  so  surprising  us,  he  handed  the 
socks,  which  he  had  evidently  but  just  put  on  that  day,  to 
the  veteran,  and  against  that  individual's  earnest  protesta- 
tions, forced  him  to  take  them  to  wear. 

We  are  certain  that  the  same  angel  who  dropped  a  tear 
on  the  record  of  Uncle  Toby's  oath,  will  enter  those  socks 
to  the  credit  side  of  Mr.  Mack's  account,  at  a  large  increase 
on  their  market  value. 

Shaking  hands  with  the  battered  old  veteran,  and  wish- 
ing him  good  speed  on  his  journey  to  Mollie,  we  left  Mr. 
31ack  in  his  office  in  a  meditative  mood." 


LOST  IN  THE   STREETS.  89 


LOST  IN  THE   STREETS. 

OPERATIONS  OF   THE   BUREAU    FOR    THE   RECOVERY  OF   LOST  PERSONS,  ETC. 
OFFICER  McWATTERS  IN  CHARGE. 

DURING  a  considerable  portion  of- his  connection  with  the 
Metropolitan  Police,  Officer  McWatters  had  charge  of  the 
department  denominated  "  Bureau  for  the  Recovery  of  Lost 
Persons ;  "  a  position  which  both  his  experience  and  active 
sympathies  with  sorrow  peculiarly  fitted  him  to  fill.  Its 
duties  were  very  onerous,  as  will  be  seen  by  the  following 
article  copied  from  the  World  newspaper  of  December  12, 
18G8,  and  which  cannot  fail  to  greatly  interest  such  of  our 
readers  as  are  not  conversant  with  life  and  its  mysteries  in 
the  great  Babylon  of  America. 


In  a  side  room  of  the  main  hall  of  the  Central  Police 
Headquarters,  on  the  second  story,  in  Mulberry  Street,  is 
a  desk,  at  which  sits  an  old  rosy-cheeked,  white-headed 
police  officer,  named  McWatters.  Officer  McWatters  is 
famous  in  New  York.  He  is  a  theatrical  critic,  and  his 
opinions  on  music  and  the  drama  are  greatly  esteemed  by 
artists ;  but,  like  most  critics,  he  is  a  little  dogmatic  at 
times,  perhaps. 

Officer  McWatters  is  detailed  by  Inspector  George  Dilks 
to  take  charge  of  a  department  organized  in  November, 
1867,  to  supply  a  great  want,  and  which  is  now  in  success- 
ful operation.  This  department  is  known  as  the  "  Bureau 
for  the  Recovery  of  Lost  Persons."  Officer  McWatters 
was  formerly  in  the  City  Hall  Precinct,  under  Captains 
Thorne  and  Brackett,  and  is  very  well  acquainted  with  the 
city,  so  his  services  have  been  made  available  in  his  new 
bureau. 

MISSING  MEN  AND  WOMEN. 

The  manner  of  investigation  in  regard  to  a  missing  rela- 
tive or  friend  is  as  follows :  As  soon  as  a  person  disappears 


90  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

from  home,  the  nearest  relative,  on  learning  of  the  missing 
person,  goes  to  police  headquarters  and  makes  application 
to  the  "Missing  Bureau  "  for  information.  The  age,  height, 
build;  whiskers,  if  any;  color  of  eyes,  dress,  hair;  the 
place  where  last  seen,  the  habits  and  disposition  of  the 
person,  are  given  to  the  inspectors,  and  Officer  McWatters 
makes  proper  entries  on  his  register,  which  he  keeps  for 
that  purpose,  of  all  these  facts.  The  personal  description 
of  the  missing  one  is  compared  with  the  returns  made  by 
the  Morgue  every  twenty-four  hours  to  the  police  inspec- 
tors. Should  the  description  answer  to  the  person  and 
clothing  of  any  one  found  at  the  Morgue,  word  is  at  once 
sent  to  the  relatives  of  the  joyful  news.  Besides  this,  an- 
other very  necessary  precaution  is  taken  to  find  the  per- 
son or  persons  missing.  Cards  are  printed,  five  or  six 
hundred  in  number,  and  sent  to  all  the  police  offices  on 
special  duty  in  the  different  metropolitan  precincts,  with 
instructions  to  the  captains  to  have  his  men  make  active 
and  energetic  search  for  the  person. 

TROUBLES  ABOUT  LOST  PEOPLE. 

Over  seven  hundred  people  have  been  reported  as  miss- 
ing, to  police  headquarters  during  the  past  twelve  months. 
Of  this  number  the  majority  have  been  found,  it  is  believed, 
as  no  record  can  be  kept  of  those  who  are  not  reported 
when  found,  by  their  relatives  or  friends,  to  headquarters. 
Occasionally,  a  person  who  reports  some  one  missing 
belonging  to  them,  will  give  all  the  details  about  him,  but 
if  found,  will  fail  to  notify  the  authorities,  from  a  sense  of 
shame  where  domestic  difficulties  have  occurred  in  fami- 
lies, or  from  laziness,  or  a  sense  of  forgetfulness.  Thus  all 
track  is  lost  of  those  who  have  been  found  unknown  to  the 
police,  and  accurate  statistics  are  bafiled  in  the  matter 
of  inquiry. 

WHERE  AND  HOW  PEOPLE  ARE  LOST. 
The  manner  in  which  missing  men  are  advertised,  is  as 


LOST  IN  THE   STREETS.  91 

follows  :    A  card,  of  which  the  following  are  fair  examples, 
is  circulated  among  the  police. 

"  MISSING.  —  Morton  D.  Gifford,  about  twenty-five  years  of  age,  light 
hazel  eyea,  brown  hair,  full  beard  and  mustache  same  color,  five  feet  six 
and  three  quarters  inches ;  lias  lost  two  first  joints  of  the  middle  fingers  of 
right  hand.  Had  on  a  light  brown  cloth  suit  bound  with  black,  the  vest 
cut  without  a  collar,  a  black  cloth  overcoat  made  sack  fashion,  with  black 
velvet  buttons.  Was  last  seen  on  board  the  steamer  City  of  Norfolk, 
running  between  Norfolk  and  Crisfield,  in  connection  with  the  Crisfield, 
Wilmington,  and  Philadelphia  Railroad  Annameric  line,  on  the  3d  of  Feb- 
ruary, 18G8.  Had  with  him  a  black  leather  satchel,  containing  a  full  suit 
of  black  clothes,  hat,  linen,  &c.  Was  a  soldier  in  the  Union  army,  and 
has  recently  been  in  business  in  Plymouth,  North  Carolina.  Any  person 
having  any  information  regarding  him  will  pleasa  communicate  with  In- 
spector Dilks,  300  Mulberry  Street,  New  York." 

*'  OFFICE  OF  THE  SUPERINTENDENT  OF  METROPOLITAN  POLICE,  > 
300  MULBERRY  STREET,  NEW  YORK,  January  11,  18G8.      5 

"  MISSING  —  since  Thursday  evening  last,  Mary  Agnes  Walsh,  23  years 
of  age,  residing  at  2Sli  Elizabeth  Street,  five  feet  high,  medium  size,  slim 
built,  dark  complexion,  dark-brown  hair,  dark  eyes,  had  on  a  black  alpaca 
dress,  black  plush  coat  (or  cloak),  black  velvet  hat.  It  is  supposed  she 
is  wandering  about  the  city  in  a  temporary  state  of  insanity,  as  she  has 
just  returned  from  the  Lunatic  Asylum,  where  she  has  been  temporarily 
confined  for  the  last  three  weeks.  Any  information  of  the  above  to  be 
sent  to  her  brother,  Andrew  Walsh,  281|  Elizabeth  Street,  or  to  Inspector 
Dilks,  300  Mulberry  Street." 

"  MISSING,  since  Thursday,  November  14,  John  F.  McCormick.  When 
last  seen,  he  was  on  board  the  steamtug  Yankee,  at  the  foot  of  Charlton 
Street;  age  24  years,  eyes  and  hair  dark  brown,  height  five  feet  four 
inches,  heavy  eyebrows.  He  was  dressed  in  a  brown  sack  coat  and  brown 
vest,  black  pnnts,  flat-crowned  black  hat.  Any  person  knowing  his 
whereabouts,  or  having  seen  him  since  the  above  date,  will  please  call  at 
the  residence  of  his  uncle,  Robert  McCormick,  No.  12  Talman  Street, 
Brooklyn,  or  to  Inspector  Dilks,  Police  Headquarters,  300  Mulberry 
Street.  November  30,  1867." 

"  FIFTY  DOLLARS  REWARD.  —  Missing  from  Bay  Street,  Stapleton, 
Staten  Island,  since  Wednesday,  November  25,  18G8,  Willy  Hardgrove,  a 
boy  eight  years  of  age,  medium  size,  dark  hair,  dark,  clear  complexion, 
blue  eyes ;  has  a  recent  scar  on  his  cheek,  made  by  the  scratch  of  a  pin  ; 
dressed  in  a  dark  striped  jacket  and  pants ;  the  pants  button  on  the  jacket 
with  light  bone  buttons ;  old,  strong  boots,  no  hat.  He  is  rather  an  at- 
tractive boy,  and  very  familiar  with  strangers.  It  is  feared  he  has  been 
abducted,  from  the  fact  of  his  musical  abilities.  He  can  sing,  in  a  good 
tenor  voice,  any  tune  he  may  hear  once  played,  but  can't  speak  plain. 


92  KNOTS    UNTIED. 

The  above  reward  will  be  paid  by  his  father,  Terence  M.  Hardgrove, 
Stapleton,  for  such  information  as  will  lead  to  his  recovery.  Informa- 
tion may  be  sent  to  Inspector  Dilks,  Police  Headquarters,  300  Mulberry 
Street, 

"  MISSING.  —  Annie  Hearn  left  her  home  on  Monday  last.  She  is  tec 
years  of  age,  dark  blue  eyes,  black  hair  cut  short ;  has  a  slight  scar  on 
her  left  temple.  Was  dressed  in  a  dark  alpaca  frock,  black  woollen 
sontag  with  white  border;  black  velvet  hat,  no  trimming,  high  laced 
boots,  striped  stockings.  Any  information  relative  to  her  will  be  grate- 
fully received  by  Richard  Burk,  217  Madison  Street,  or  Inspector  Dilks, 
800  Mulberry  Street." 

"  LEFT  her  home,  at  Hyde  Park,  Scranton  City,  Pa.,  on  Monday,  June 
14,  Sarah  Hannaghan,  aged  15,  tall  for  her  age,  short  brown  hair,  light  eyes, 
and  fair  complexion.  (II;iJ  on  a  tan-colored  dress,  light  cape,  drab  hat, 
trimmed  with  ribbon  of  the  same  color.  Had  with  her  a  dress  with  a  yel- 
low stripe,  made  short.  Information  to  be  sent  to  Inspector  Dilks,  300 
Mulberry  Street,  New  York,  or  to  James  Hannaghan,  152  Leonard 
Street."  f 

"  TWENTY-FIVE  DOLLARS  REWARD  will  be  paid  for  information  that 
will  lead  to  the  arrest  or  recovery  of  Henrietta  Voss,  aged  16  years.  She 
left  Secausus,  Hudson  county,  New  Jersey,  Tuesday,  July  21,  about  7 
A.  M.  She  is  tall,  slim  built,  and  a  little  stooped ;  brown  hair,  blue  eyes, 
long,  thin,  pale  face.  Dressed  in  a  full  suit  of  black.  The  gratitude  of  a 
father,  who  desires  to  save  his  daughter,  will  be  added  to  the  above  re- 
ward. JOHN  Voss." 

*'  TWENTY-FIVE  DOLLARS  REWARD.  —  Missing,  an  insane  man,  named 
Frederick  Liebrich,  native  of  Germany,  speaks  English,  German,  and 
French.  Supposed  to  lodge  at  night  in  the  police  stntion  houses  about  the 
lower  part  of  the  city ;  is  very  stupid  looking,  and  clothed  in  rags.  Was 
last  seen  in  Washington  Market,  about  the  middle  of  last  November.  He 
is  about  38  years  of  age,  eyes  and  hair  black,  large,  regular  features,  and 
very  dark  complexion ;  about  five  feet  ten  inches  high,  stout  built,  straight 
and  well  made.  The  above  reward  will  be  paid  for  his  recovery,  or  direct 
evidence  of  his  death,  by  Frederick  Kummich,  82  Washington  Street, 
Brooklyn.  Information  to  be  sent  to  Inspector  Dilks,  Police  Headquar- 
ters, 300  Mulberry  Street." 

LOST  CHILDREN. 

Hundreds  of  "  lost  children "  bear  testimony  to  the 
carelessness  of  mothers  and  nurses,  who  are  more  intent 
on  other  business,  when  their  charges  stray  off,  to  be  found 
afterwards,  in  out-of-the-way  places,  by  stray  policcim-n. 
Quite  often  a  pedestrian  will  notice,  on  going  along  one 


LOST  IN  TUB   STREETS.  93 

of  our  side  streets,  a  young  child,  its  eyes  bubbling 
over  with  tears,  and  red  from  irritation  and  inflammation, 
who  has  strayed  from  its  parents'  residence.  Sometimes 
it  will  have  a  stick  of  candy  in  its  infantile  fist,  or  else  an 
apple,  or  a  slice  of  bread,  butter,  and  molasses,  to  console  it 
in  its  wanderings.  It  is  very  seldom,  however,  that  these 
children  do  not  find  their  way  back  to  their  parents,  unless 
that  there  is  foul  play,  in  such  instances  where  a  child  may 
be  kidnapped  by  people  who  are  childless,  or  through  their 
agency,  for  the  purpose  of  adoption  in  barren  families. 
The  practice  of  baby-farming  has  not  as  yet  attained,  in 
America,  the  height  that  it  has  reached  in  England,  and 
therefore  the  lives  of  children  are  not  yet  so  endangered 
as  they  are  across  the  water.  It  is  calculated  that  at  least 
one  thousand  children  are  missing  every  year  in  this  city, 
but  they  are  nearly  all  returned  before  the  close  of  the  day 
on  which  they  are  first  missed. 

THE  DENS  OF  MIDNIGHT. 

If  the  thousand  and  one  noisome  crannies,  nooks,  and 
dens  of  this  great  city  could  be  exposed  to  view,  day  after 
day,  the  body  of  many  a  missing  man  and  woman  might  be 
found  festering  and  rotting,  or  their  bones  bleaching,  for 
want  of  decent  burial.  Where  do  the  bodies  come  from 
that  are  fished  up,  bloated  and  disfigured,  night  after 
night,  by  the  Water  Police,  in  haunts  of  the  docks,  and 
from  the  slimes  of  the  Hudson  ?  It  is  fearful  to  think  of 
men,  influenced  by  liquor,  who,  with  their  gold  watches, 
pocket-books,  and  other  valuables,  exposed  in  the  most  fool- 
ish manner,  are  to  be  seen,  night  after  night,  in  the  dens , 
and  hells  of  this  great,  sinful  city.  Many  of  these  men  are 
from  far-off  country  villages  and  happy  homes,  and  when 
thrown  into  our  streets  at  night,  under  the  flare  of  the  gas 
lamps,Aand  among  crowds  of  showily  dressed  women,  whose 
feet  are  ever  downward  into  the  abyss,  it  becomes  almost 
impossible  for  them  to  resist  the  thousand  and  one  mere- 
tricious temptations  that  are  placed  before  them. 


94  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

THE  HORROR  OP  A  BREAKING  DAWN. 
Instances  may  be  related  of  how  men  disappear,  and  are 
never  heard  of  to  be  recognized.  A  well-to-do  person  from 
Ohio,  who  had  never  visited  New  York  before,  pays  a  visit 
to  this  city,  and  stopping  at  a  down-town  hotel,  sallies  out 
in  the  evening  in  search  of  what  he  has  been  taught,  by 
his  limited  course  of  reading  to  call  "  adventures."  He 
believes,  in  his  Ohio  simplicity,  that  he  will  meet  with  a 
beautiful  and  rich  young  lady  in  New  York,  who,  struck 
with  his  rural  graces  and  charms,  will  at  once  accept  his 
hand  and  farm.  Well,  he  takes  a  look  at  the  "  Black 
Crook,"  or  "  White  Fawn,"  or  "  Genevieve  de  Brabant," 
and,  returning  late  to  his  down-town  hotel,  is  struck  by  th< 
beauty  and  grace  of  a  female  form  that  glides  before  him 
on  his  way  thither.  Pretty  soon  she  makes  a  signal  to 
him  that  cannot  be  mistaken,  and  our  Ohio  friend,  rathe* 
astonished  at  the  freedom  of  the  aristocratic  and  well-brerf 
ladies  of  the  metropolis,  but  nothing  loath,  hastens  to  hei 
side,  and  accompanies  her  to  her  richly  voluptuous  mair 
sion  in  Bleecker,  Green,  Mercer,  or  Crosby  Streets.  In 
the  watches  of  the  night  he  awakens  to  find  the  aristocratic* 
lady  fastened  on  his  throat,  and  a  male  friend  of  hers,  with 
a  villanous  countenance,  poising  a  knife  for  a  plunge  in  his 
neck.  The  work  is  done  quickly;  a  barrel  well  packed, 
or  a  furniture  chest,  placed  in  a  carriage  at  night,  can  be 
taken  up  the  Hudson  River  road,  and  there  dropped  in  the 
river,  and  after  a  day  or  so  the  head  of  another  dead  man 
will  be  found  eddying  and  floating  around  the  rolling  piers 
near  the  battery,  his  face  a  pulp,  and  no  longer  recogniza- 
ble. The  sun  shines  down  on  the  plashing  waters,  but  the 
eyes  are  sightless,  and  never  another  sun  can  dim  their 
brilliancy  or  splendor.  It  is  only  another  missing  man, 
without  watch,  pocket-book,  or  money  on  his  person. 

MISERY,  SHAME,  AND  DEATH. 

Another  missing  instance.    A  beautiful  girl,  born  in  a 
village  on  the  Sound,  where  the  waters  of  that  inland  sea 


LOST   IN   THE   STREETS.  95 

beat,  and  play  around  the  sandy  pebbles  of  a  land-locked 
inlet,  is  reared  in  innocence  and  virtue,  until  she  reaches 
her  seventeenth  year.  She  is  as  lovely  as  the  dawn,  has 
had  no  excitement  —  but  the  Sunday  prayer-meeting,  and 
her  life,  peaceful  and  happy,  has  never  been  tainted  by  the 
novelty  of  desire.  At  seventeen  she  visits  New  York  for 
the  first  eventful  time  in  her  life.  She  is  dazzled  with  its 
theatres,  its  balls,  its  Central  Park ;  the  Broadway  confuses 
and  intoxicates  her,  but  opera  has  divine  charms  for  her 
musical  ear,  and  she  is  escorted,  night,  after  night,  by  a  man 
with  a  pleasing  face  and  a  ready  tongue.  She  is  yet  white 
as  the  unstained  snow.  One  night  they  take  a  midnight 
sleigh  ride  on  the  road,  and  stop  at  a  fashionable-looking 
restaurant  in  Harlem  Lane.  She  is  persuaded  to  take  a 
glass  of  champagne,  and  finally  to  drink  an  entire  bottle  of 
champagne.  That  night  the  world  is  torn  from  under  her 
feet.  She  has  tasted  of  the  Apples  of  Death.  She  returns 
to  her  peaceful  home,  by  the  silken  waves  of  the  Sound,  a 
dishonored  woman.  To  hide  her  shame,  she  returns  to 
New  York ;  but  her  destroyer  has  gone  —  she  knows  not 
whither.  Then  the  struggle  begins  for  existence  and 
bread.  She  is  a  seamstress,  a  dry-goods  clerk,  but  her 
shame  finds  her  out  when  an  infant  is  born  to  her  unnamed. 
One  night,  hungry,  and  torn  with  the  struggle  of  a  lost 
hope,  she  rushes  into  the  streets  and  seeks  the  river.  On 
a  lone  pier  she  seeks  refuge  from  her  "  lost  life."  The 
night-watchman,  anxious  about  the  cotton  and  rosin  con- 
fided  to  his  charge,  does  not  hear  the  cry  of  "  Mother  "  from 
a  despairing  girl,  OP  the  plunge  into  the  gloomy,  silent. river 
below.  She  is  not  found  for  days  after,  and  then  her  once 
fair  face  is  knawed  threadbare  with  the  incisors  of  crabs, 
and  the  once  white  neck,  rounded  as  a  pillar  of  glory,  is  a 
mere  greenish  mass  of  festering  corruption.  She  is  not 
recognized,  and  thus  fills  the  page  devoted  to  missing 
people. 


96  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

FINIS. 

Then  there  are  the  cases  of  girls  who  disappear  from  their 
homes  outside  of  New  York,  and  descend  into  her  brothels, 
where  they  find  rich  raiment,  rich  food,  a  merry  and 
unceasing  round  of  gayety,  champagne  and  lovers,  which 
they  could  never  hope  for  where  they  came  from.  These 
girls  leave  home  very  often  through  sensuality  or  laziness, 
—  for  girls  are  lazy  as  well  as  boys,  —  and  when  missing, 
are  generally  found  in  brothels,  which,  as  a  general  thing, 
they  will  not  leave  for  their  parents.  Then  there  are  hus- 
bands and  wives  who  quarrel  foolishly,  and  separate  to  vex 
each  other,  and  are  missing  for  years,  to  finally  bo  forced 
into  other  illegal  ties.  And  there  is  a  case  of  a  young 
man,  twenty,  married  and  rich,  who  leaves  his  wife  ;  is  gone 
for  twelve  months,  and  is  found  in  New  Orleans,  when  he 
tells  those  who  find  him  that  he  has  been  very  sick,  and 
was  forced  to  leave  his  happy  home. 

There  is  also,  as  it  is  well  known-,  a  great  number  of 
infamous  houses  in  this  city  where  abortion  is  openly  prac- 
tised, and  where  whole  hecatombs  of  innocent  children  are 
slaughtered,  to  hide  the  shame  of  their  guilty  mothers. 
How  many  wealthy  and  refined  girls  are  to  be  found  in 
these  slaughter-houses,  concealed  there  to  hide  the  evi- 
dences of  their  indiscretion,  by  their  parents  or  relatives, 
whose  social  position  would  be  lost  did  the  consequences 
of  such  indiscretion  show  themselves  ?  The  mothers  are 
left  tor  die  in  agony,  again  and  again ;  and  there  is  no 
coroner's  inquest  or  public  burial ;  for  are  there  not  scores 
of  obliging  physicians  to  hush  the  matter  up  ? 

And  then,  again,  our  private  lunatic  asylums.  How 
many  men  and  women  are  spirited  away  to  those  tombs  of 
living  men,  where  remonstrance  or  clamor  is  useless  unless 
the  public  press  tracks  the  injury,  as  in  the  case  of  a  well- 
known  naval  officer,  who  was  most  unjustly  confined,  as 
the  investigation  proved,  and  was  only  released  by  the 
agitation  made  by  The  World  newspaper. 


AMONG  THE   SHARKS. 


AMONG  THE  "SHARKS." 

ADVENTURES   OF   A    FALL  RIVER   WANDERER  —  HIS   VALUABLE    EXPERIENCE 
IN   NEW   YORK  —  THE   BOND   OPERATOR. 

A  PAET  of  Officer  Me  Walters'  duty,  when  connected  with 
the  Railroad  and  Steamboat  Squad,  was  to  advise  and  pro- 
tect strangers  in  the  city.  He,  of  course,  encountered 
many  a  curious  country  chap,  making  his  debut  in  the 
great  Metropolis.  One  of  the  most  comical,  if  not  the 
most  valuable  things  Officer  McWatters  could  possibly  do 
for  the  delectation  of  readers  in  general,  would  be  to  write 
out  his  multifold  experiences  with  strangers  in  the  city, 
and  put  the  whole  into  book  form,  entitled,  for  example, 
"  Afloat  in  the  Sea  of  Iniquity,  Waifs  Gathered  There." 
The  following  is  taken  from  the  New  York  Mercury  of 
some  years  ago. 

Officer  McWatters,  whose  urbanity  and  politeness  is 
proverbial,  was  accosted  yesterday  forenoon,  by  a  young 
man  who  had  just  stepped  off  of  the  Fall  River  boat,  who 
inquired  of  him  to  know  the  way  to  the  Park. 

"  What  park  ?  "  politely  queried  the  officer. 

"  0,  I  don't  know,  —  any  park  where  I  can  sit  down 
a  while,  and  see  something  of  New  York !  " 

"  Better  take  a  stage  and  go  to  Union  Park.  Everything 
clean,  quiet,  and  orderly." 

The  officer  assisted  the  young  man  into  the  stage,  which 
soon  sat  him  down  in  Union  Park.  The  Park  never  looked 
lovelier.  Children  and  drums,  nurses  and  baby-wagons, 
small  boys  and  fire-crackers,  lovely  maidens  with  books  of 
poesy,  the  water-basin  and  the  flowing  fountain,  the  green 
trees  and  the  luxuriant  shade,  all  were  but  parts  of  a  per- 
fect whole,  which  Mr.  Jasper  Gray,  the  young  man  in  ques- 
tion, enjoyed  hugely. 

Mr.  Gray  is  a  native  of 'that  enterprising  village  known 
as  Fall  River,  and  he  had  come  to  New  York  to  see  the 


98  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

sights.  The  senior  Gray  had  warned  him  to  look  out  for  the 
"  sharks  ;  "  and  with  a  promise  that  he  would  do  so,  and 
about  one  hundred  and  sixty  dollars  in  his  pocket,  the 
young  man  left  his  home,  to  sojourn  several  weeks  in  and 
about  the  Metropolis.  Mr.  Gray's  idea  of  "  sharks  "  was, 
that  of  some  huge  braggadocio,  who  would  fiercely  assault 
him  late  at  night,  demand  his  money  or  his  life,  or  assume 
some  other  equally  disagreeable  mode  of  placing  him  in  a 
dilemma.  He  had  no  idea  that  under  the  bright  sun  of 
midday,  and  in  the  grateful  shade  of  the  trees  of  a  public 
square,  the  shark  was  looking  and  watching  for  a  victim ; 
but  so  it  was. 

As  he  cast  his  eye  towards  the  fountain,  his  gaze  rested 
upon  a  little  child  playing  on  the  greensward,  now  rolling 
on  the  grass,  and  again  approaching  dangerously  near  the 
water's  edge.  Once  thinking  that  the  child  might  fall  in, 
he  sprang  from  his  seat,  and  caught  the  little  fellow  by  the 
arm,  and  delivered  him  into  the  hands  of  his  nurse.  A  few 
moments  after  this  occurrence  an  elegantly-dressed  young 
lady  came  up  to  the  seat  upon  which  he  was  sitting,  and 
begged  leave  to  thank  him  for  having  so  kindly  cared  for 
her  little  brother,  whom,  she  declared,  he  had  saved  from 
falling  into  the  water. 

"  Nurse  has  gone  home  with  the  darling,  now ;  but  I 
could  not  feel  to  leave  you  without  expressing  my  grati- 
tude for  your  kindness/'  said  the  lady,  whose  eyes  'shone 
with  brilliancy  through  the  thin  gauze  veil,  filling  Mr. 
Jasper  Gray  with  the  most  undefinable  feelings. 

He  replied  awkwardly  to  her  many  complimentary  ex- 
pressions, but  finally  became  animated,  and  began,  as  all 
slightly  verdant  people  are' apt  to  do,  to  speak  of  himself, 
his  connections,  the  town  he  came  from,  how  he  came  to 
leave,  what  his  father  told  him,  how  much  money  he  had, 
and  a  hundred  other  equally  as  interesting  matters.  The 
lady  was  interested.  She  grew  animated  as  Mr.  Jasper 
Gray  proceeded  ;  and  as  he  alluded  to  the  one  hundred  and 
sixty  dollars  with  which  he  had  been  provided  on  leaving 


AMONG  THE   SHARKS.  99 

home,  her  interest  seemed  to  have  reached  its  height.  She 
declared  he  must  accompany  her  home  to  see  pa  and  ma, 
and  receive  their  thanks  for  having  saved  little  Charlie's 
life. 

Really,  this  was  too  much  ;  but  the  young  lady  insisted, 
and  Mr.  Gray  at  length  yielded  to  her  solicitations,  happy 
in  the  thought  that  he  had  not  only  escaped  the  "  sharks," 
but  had  fallen  into  the  most  pleasant  of  experiences  with 
the  most  respectable  of  people.  The  mansion  into  which 
our  hero  was  inveigled  was  one  of  the  first  class.  The 
furniture  was  of  rosewood  and  brocatelle,  and  the  lace  cur- 
tains swept  the  floor  with  their  magnificent  dimensions. 
Elaborately  carved  chandeliers  were  suspended  from  the 
ceiling,  costly  mirrors  and  valuable  paintings  decorated  the 
walls,  and  marble-top  tables  and  a  splendid  piano  lent  their 
attractions  to  the  room.  Bouquets  of  choice  flowers  shed 
a  rich  fragrance  about  the  place,  giving  it  an  air  of 
elegance  and  enchantment.  Here  Mr.  Gray  spent  the 
afternoon.  An  elderly-looking  personage  played  mother, 
and  thanked  him  a  thousand  times  for  saving  Charlie.  Pa 
would  soon  be  home,  and  he  would  be  equally  grateful. 
Cake  and  wine  were  served.  The  youth  was  in  a  perfect 
sea  of  delights.  The  wine  raised  his  spirits,  and  evil 
thoughts  entered  his  heart.  He  cast  longing  and  loving 
glances  upon  the  fair  Florine  of  the  mansion,  and  the  elder- 
ly matron  adroitly  withdrew.  More  wine  was  served,  and 
the  young  man  was  in  a  fit  condition  to  sing  with  Burns, 

"  Inspiring  bold  John  Barleycorn," 

so  bravely  did  the  ruddy  fluid  lift  him  up. 

"What  followed  must  be  left-  to  the  imagination  of  the 
reader.  Suffice  it  to  say,  that  the  Fall  River  wanderer, 
when  in  the  full  flush  of  the  Paradise  of  which  the  wine 
had  led  him  to  believe  he  was  the  sole  master, -was  sudden- 
ly confronted  by  an  enraged  father,  who  desired  simply  to 
know  who  he  was  before  he  killed  him  on  the  spot,  and 
by  a  sobbing  mother,  who  declared  he  had  betrayed  the 


100  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

confidence  she  had  reposed  in  him ;  and  last,  hut  not  the 
least  important,  the  beautiful  being,  whose  dishevelled  hair 
and  disarranged  toilet  told  a  woi'ul  story,  standing  before 
him,  a  mute  upbraider  of  his  crime.  Such  a  combination 
of  revenge,  despair,  and  injured  innocence,  as  the  trio  pre- 
sented, very  nearly,  but  not  effectually,  sobered  Mr.  Gray, 
and  left  him  in  a  peculiarly  muddled  condition,  in  wliidi. 
with  true  Yankee  simplicity,  he  felt  for  his  pocket-book,  as 
the  most  available  and  only  method  of  settling  the  accumu- 
lated difficulties  under  which  he  found  himself  laboring. 

It  is  a  credit  to  his  instinct,  that  the  production  of  the 
pocket-book  aforesaid  produced  the  desired  result.  The 
mother  was  compromised  by  the  payment  of  one  hundred 
dollars,  and  Mr.  Gray  was  allowed  to  depart.  He  of  course 
sought  for  his  new-made  friend,  Officer  McWatters,  for  con- 
solation and  advice  in  his  emergency,  and  seventy  dollars 
of  the  amount  was  recovered  last  evening,  and  Mr.  Gray 
was  admonished  to  expect  the  "  sharks  "  in  any  and  every 
possible  garb,  from  the  rollicking  gutter-man  of  the  Five 
Points  to  the  extensively  got-up  denizens  of  the  Fifth 
Avenue  or  the  Astor. 

But  we  ought,  perhaps,  to  add  here  an  incident  of  Mr. 
Gray's  experience  among  the  "  sharks  "  of  another  kiml 
than  that  alluded  to  in  the  foregoing  portion. of  his  history. 
Not  willing  to  trust  himself  further  alone  in  the  city,  and 
wishing  to  make  his  visit  to  New  York  as  profitable  as 
possible  to  himself  in  the  sight-seeing  way,  he  begged 
Officer  McWatters  to  permit  him  to  go  around  with  him  on 
his  business  tours.  The  complacent  McWatters,  who  was 
never  known  to  deny  any  one  anything  proper  to  be  asked, 
and  which  he  could  give,  permitted  the  bore  to  accompany 
him  for  a  day  or  two.  Among  the  early  sights  thereafter 
seen  by  the  young  man,  was  one,  which  frightened  him 
so  thoroughly,  that  the  wonder  is  his  hair  did  not  ^turn 
white  on  the  spot.  He  declared,  after  he  recovered  Jiis 
self-possession,  that  he  "  wouldn't  be  hired  to  live  a  week 
in  New  York  for  all  Old  Vanderbilt's  pile." 


AMONG   THE    "SHARKS."  103 

Officer  Me  Walters  had  occasion  to  cross  Wall  Street,  on 
a  hasty  errand  of  business  down  into  Beaver  Street, 
accompanied  by  his  attacks,  Mr.  Gray,  when  they  came 
suddenly  into  the  midst  of  a  great  excitement.  A  dandily- 
dressed,  rakish-looking  young  man  was  just  breaking  out 
of  a  crowd,  and  running  with  hands  full  of  papers  and 
a  bag.  Officer  Me  Waiters  instantly  "twigged"  the  nature  of 
the  trouble,  and  put  chase  after  the  fellow,  unceremoniously 
leaving  Mr.  Gray  in  the  midst  of  the  turbulent  and  excited 
crowd.  The  fleeing  young  scamp,  who  had  just  snatched 
a  package  of  United  States  bonds  and  a  money  bag  from 
an  old  messenger  of  some  house,  who  was  on  his  way  to 
make  a  deposit,  was  a  little  too  fleet  for  Officer  McWatters, 
and  gained  on  him  a  little ;  but,  turning  a  corner,  was  for- 
tunately impeded  in  his  flight  by  another  policeman,  who 
chanced  to  have  his  pistol  about  him,  and  brought  it  to 
bear  on  him.  The  bold  "  Bond  Operator  "  (as  such  villains, 
who  were  quite  plenty  in  those  days,  were  called)  thought 
discretion  the  better  part  of  valor,  surrendered,  and  got 
his  dues,  we  believe,  at  last. 

Mr.  Gray  was  in  fearful  plight  over  losing  Officer  Mc- 
Watters,  and  it  was  some  time  before  he  found  him  again, 
meanwhile  getting  jostled  about  among  the  large  and  fierce 
crowd  of  excited  Wall  Streeters,  whom  the  interesting  oc- 
casion hurriedly  brought  together.  He  quite  lost  heart 
for  sight-seeing  in  that  adventure,  and  was,  at  last,  only 
too  glad  to  "  get  out  of  the  infernal  city,"  and  went  home 
a  wiser  man,  we  presume,  than  when  he  first  landed  in  the 
city  from  the  Fall  River  boat. 


104  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

A  SMART  YOUNG  MAN. 

AN   AFTER-DINNER    COLLOQUY  —  AND   ITS   RESULT. 

FROM  one  of  the  public  journals  we  clipped  the  accom- 
panying spicy  article ;  we  have  lost  our  notes,  and  have 
forgotten  from  which,  or  we  should  duly  credit  it  to  the 
proper  source.  We  discover  that  we  have  "  pencilled  "  it 
"  1862,"  and  presume  that  it  first  appeared  in  that  year. 
Our  readers  will  pardon  its  somewhat  "  swelling  "  style  in 
sundry  places,  but  it  exemplifies  Officer  McWatters'  quick 
and  acute  perceptions,  and  his  character  as  a  detective, 
and  we  therefore  give  it  place. 

YOUNG  MAN  OF  LARGE  APPETITE  AND  SMALL  CONSCIENCE. 
—  The  necessity  of  eating  is  a  strong  one  ;  the  demands 
of  appetite  are  peculiarly  and  pertinaciously  potent.  There 
are  many  fleshy-looking  young  men  in  New  York  whose 
appetital  demands  are  largely  ahead  of  their  pecuaiary  re- 
sources, the  latter  being  of  a  limited  nature,  like  their  con- 
sciences. Our  leading  hotel  diners  are  appreciatively 
affected  by  these  unconscionably-stomached  and  conscience- 
less individuals ;  and  it  requires  all  the  devices  of  the  pro- 
prietors, and  ingenious  watching  of  sharp-sighted  detec- 
tives, to  guard  against  their  stealthful  appropriation  of 
dinners.  In  the  multiplicity  of  guests  daily  arriving  at 
firskclass  hotels,  and  multiplied  disguises  assumed  by  the 
unpaying  diners,  it  is  easy  to  conceive  that  the  labor  of 
watchfulness  is  no  light  one,  and  the  guarantee  of  detec- 
tives by  no  means  sure.  There  is  no  keener  man  in  the 
Police  Department  to  scent  out  a  rogue  than  Officer  Mc- 
Watters. He  can  tell  a  rascal  by  a  sort  of  instinct.  A 
stranger  to  him  is  like  a  piece  of  coin  in  the  hand  of  the 
skilful  medallist,  who  tells  the  spurious  from  the  genuine 
by  the  feeling  —  by  a  glance  even. 

Officer  McWatters  measures  a  man  at  a  glance.  He  sees 
the  latent  roguery  peering  out  of  the  corner  of  the  eyes, 


A   SMART  YOUNG  MAN.  105 

lurking  in  the  smile,  hiding  itself  in  the  cultivated  mus- 
tache and  careful  whiskers,  strongly  and  unconsciously 
developing  even  in  the  gorgeous  watch-chain,  flashy  vest, 
showy  cravat,  elaborately-checked  pants,  and  brilliantly 
shining  patents,  or,  vice  versa,  suit  of  puritanical  plainness. 
His  penetrative  optics  permeated,  yesterday  afternoon,  the 
disguise  of  that  most  notable  and  audacious  of  non-paying 
hotel  diners,  Jack  Vinton.  Jack  had  taken  dinner  at  the 
Metropolitan  Hotel.  His  brassy  impudence  had  enabled 
him  to  pass  muster,  as  a  guest  of  the  hotel,  the  Cerberus  at 
the  dining-room  door.  Not  to  betray  a  dangerous  haste  in 
leaving,  he  sank  back  leisurely  into  a  soft-cushioned  chair 
in  the  gentlemen's  parlor,  and  read  a  newspaper  for  a 
while.  He  was  going  out  of  the  hall  door,  when  Officer 
McWatters  spotted  him. 

"  Are  you  stopping  at  this  hotel  ?  "  asked  the  officer 
(who,  by  the  way,  was  in  citizen's  dress),  in  that  tone  of 
politeness,  for  which  he  is  remarkable. 

"  I  am,  sir." 

<;  How  long  have  you  been  stopping  here  ?  " 

"  Ever  since  I  came  here." 

"  Is  your  name  registered  ?  " 

"  Registered  ?  I  never  heard  of  such  a  name.  Mine 
begins  with  an  initial  letter  of  higher  alphabetical  rank.'r 

"  You  misunderstand  me.  Is  your  name  on  the  hotel 
books?" 

"  The  bookkeeper  is  the  proper  informant." 

"  Have  you  a  suit  of  rooms  here  ?  " 

"  Am  suited  perfectly  —  all  the  rooms  I  want." 

"  What  is  the  number  of  your  room  ?  " 

"  A  No.  1  —  first-class,  sir.  First-class  hotel  has  first-class 
rooms,  you  see,  sir.  This  is  a  first-class  hotel  —  the  ergo 
as  to  the  rooms  is  conclusive." 

"  You  are  evasive." 

"  Only  logical,  sir  !  " 

"  You  took  dinner  just  now  up  stairs  ?  " 

"  Ask  your  pardon.  I  took  no  dinner  up  stairs.  I  went 
7  5 


106  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

up  with  an  empty  stomach.  An  excruciating  stomachical 
void.  '  Nature  abhors  a  vacuum/  says  philosophy  ;  and,  to 
borrow  the  apothegmatic  utterance  of  that  philosopher, 
Dan  Brown,  '  Dat's  what's  de  matter.'  " 

"  I  must  be  plain,  I  see.  You  are  Jack  Vinton,  and  are 
up  to  your  old  tricks.  You  have  come  here,  eaten  a  tip- 
top dinner,  and  were  coolly  walking  away,  with  no  thought 
of  paying  for  it." 

Jack  saw  he  was  in  for  it.  He  offered  to  pay  for  his  din- 
ner, and  attempted  by  bribery  to  effect  what  he  had  hoped 
to  effect  by  colossal  cheekiness  of  action  and  tongue ;  but 
his  antecedental  history  was  self-crushing,  like  the  mad 
ambition  of  the  great  Cassar.  He  was  conveyed  to  the 
Second  District  Police  Court,  and  committed  to  answer 
this  and  other  graver  offences  of  swindling,  of  which  he  is 
supposed  to  be  guilty. 

Jack  is  only  twenty-three  years  old,  and  is  a  master- 
swindler.  Of  good  family,  he  has  been  well  educated,  and 
to  fine  looks  adds  the  manners  of  a  polished  gentleman ; 
while  in  artistic  culture  and  familiarity  with  the  classics, 
scientific  studies  and  polite  and  poetical  literature,  he  has 
few  equals  of  his  years.  His  dashing  form  is  often  seen 
on  Broadway  —  the  envied  of  his  own  sex  and  the  admired 
of  the  opposite  sex.  His  career  betrays  a  wonderful  and 
perverse  mingling  of  the  finest  intellectual  endowments 
and  culture  with  the  meanest  and  most  pitiable,  traits  of 
low  and  dishonest  natures.  He  is  a  sort  of  Lord  Bacon,  on 
a  vastly  reduced  scale  of  brilliancy.  As  philosophy  delves 
the  mysterious  problem,  she  finds  only  "  darkness  to 
•shadow  round  about  it." 


A   SUSPECTED   CALIFORNIA   MURDERER.  107 


A  SUSPECTED   CALIFORNIA  MURDERER. 

AERESTED — CHARGED  WITH  KILLING  FOUR  MEN;  A  GERMAN,  FOR  HIS 
MONEY,  AND  TWO  SHERIFFS  AND  A  DRIVER,  WHO  WERE  CONVEYING 
HIM  TO  PRISON. 

THE  following  article  is  taken  from  the  New  York  Dis- 
patch (1861),  and  serves  to  illustrate  the  sagacity  of 
Officer  McWatters  in  "  picking  out  his  man  "  in  a  crowd. 

A  young  man  named  Velge,  lately  from  California,  was 
arrested  at  the  pier  of  the  Ocean  Mail  Steamship  Company 
by  Officers  McWatters  and  Hartz,  of  the  Steamboat  Squad, 
and  taken  to  *Police  Headquarters,  where  he  has  been 
since  detained,  till  the  matter  can  undergo  examination 
before  a  magistrate.  The  report,  as  obtained  from  an  offi- 
cer at  the  central  office,  is  substantially  as  follows :  — 

About  eighteen  months  since,  a  German,  residing  in 
Sacramento,  was  murdered  under  circumstances  of  extraor- 
dinary brutality.  He  was  mild  and  inoffensive,  said  no 
extenuation  appeared  to  exist  for  the  atrocious  crime.  He 
had  saved  some  money,  which  the  assassin  had  taken,  but 
the  amount  was  hardly  sufficient  to  induce  an  ordinary 
bravo  to  attempt  his  life,  or  otherwise  disturb  him. 

The  suspected  murderer  was  known  to  the  police.  Ex- 
traordinary measures  were  adopted  to  bring  him  to  justice. 
His  likeness  was  obtained  somehow,  and  photographs  of  it 
were  multiplied  and  distributed  all  over  California  and 
Oregon. 

After  some  time,  intelligence  was  received  at  Sacramento 
that  the  suspected  murderer  was  at  Carson  City.  There 
was  a  resemblance,  certainly.  The  sheriff  of  Sacramento 
and  a  deputy  repaired  thither,  and  arrested  him.  A  con- 
veyance was  obtained,  and  the  legal  formularies  having  all 
been  attended  t6,  the  officers  set  out  for  Sacramento. 

The  journey  was  tedious,  as  may  well  be  expected.  The 
party  finally  neared  Sacramento.  Already  the  officers 


108  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

began  to  dream  of  home  and  rest  from  their  fatiguing 
journey.  The  driver  was  in  an  equally  listless  mood. 
Velge,  the  prisoner,  was  not  slow  to  perceive  their  half- 
somnolent  condition,  and  take  advantage  of  the  circum- 
stances. 

Quietly  but  adroitly  taking  hold  of  the  revolver  which 
one  of  the  officers  was  carrying  in  one  pocket,  he  cocked 
it  so  as  not  to  arouse  attention,  and  a  moment  after  sent  a 
'bullet  through  the  brain  of  the  unfortunate  sheriff.  The 
other  sprang  to  his  feet,  just  in  time  to  receive  the  contents 
of  another  barrel  in  his  body.  He  fell  from  the  vehicle, 
while  the  assassin  hastened  to  despatch  the  driver.  Having 
thoroughly  completed  the  work  of  death  he  fled. 

The  excitement  produced  by  this  triple*  murder  was 
terrible.  Rewards  were  offered,  and  the  State  was  thor- 
oughly searched  for  the  felon.  But  it  was  of  no  avail. 

Among  the  passengers  on  the  North  Star  was  a  young 
man  of  singular  mien,  whose  appearance  attracted  comment. 
One  of  the  passengers  had  a  portrait  of  the  murderer  of 
the  sheriffs,  and  found  it  to  agree  remarkably  with  that  of 
the  strange  passenger.  He  made  no  effort  to  call  attention 
to  the  matter,  but  took  the  opportunity,  as  soon  as  he  came 
on  shore,  to  place  the  authorities  in  possession  of  the  facts. 
The  first  man  whom  he  observed  was  the  busy  Me  Waiters, 
of  the  Steamboat  Squad,  who  was  making  himself  ubiqui- 
tous and  useful  in  the  way  of  superintending  the  landing 
of  baggage,  protecting  passengers  from  runners  and  pick- 
pockets, and  enabling  them  to  come  and  go  as  best  suited 
their  convenience. 

Approaching  the  indomitable  McWatters,  Rev.  Mr.  Peck 
addressed  him. 

Peck.  —  "  Are  you  an  officer  ?  " 

Me  Waiters.  —  "  Yes,  sir ;  I  hold  that  position,  and  am 
proud  of  it." 

Peck.  —  "  I  have  an  important  matter  to  call  your  atten- 
tion to.  Please  examine  this  likeness." 

Me  Waiters.  —  "I  see  it.  I  would  know  that  face  in  a 
thousand.  I  could  pick  it  out  in  a  crowd." 


EXTENSIVE   COUNTERFEITING.  109 

Peck.  — "  He  is  a  passenger  on  the  North  Star,  and  I 
think  is  guilty  of  murder." 

Calling  his  comrade  to  his  help,  Me  Waiters  carefully 
noted  each  passenger  as  he  was  leaving  the  steamer.  As 
Velge  came  up,  Mac  recognized  and  arrested  him.  He 
was  thunderstruck  at  the  occurrence,  and  protested  his 
innocence.  The  officers  conveyed  him  to  the  central 
office,  and  laid  the  case  before  the  superintendent.  The 
prisoner  showed  that  he  was  an  old  resident  of  this  city, 
though  only  twenty  years  old.  Several  of  his  relatives 
were  at  headquarters  yesterday  pleading  his  innocence. 
The  clergyman  who  had  caused  his  arrest  made  his  state- 
ment to  the  superintendent,  who  finally  decided  to  retain 
the  young  man  in  custody  till  he  could  be  brought  before 
a  magistrate. 

There  was  certainly  a  striking  resemblance  between  the 
portrait  and  the  countenance  of  the  prisoner.  If  the  sus- 
picions now  entertained  should  prove  to  be  well  founded, 
this  is  another  instance  of  the  perpetration  of  crime 
followed  by  its  speedy  detection. 


EXTENSIVE  COUNTERFEITING. 

SEIZURE    OF    FIFTY  THOUSAND  DOLLARS    IN    SPURIOUS    POSTAL  CURRENCY  — 
ARREST    OF   TUB    COUNTERFEITER  —  HIS  CONFESSION. 

IN  the  New  York  Times  of  November  20,  1865,  we  find 
an  article  with  the  above  caption,  and  which  we  copy  as 
below.  The  arrest  therein  spoken  of  created  much  sen- 
sation at  the  time,  as  well  it  might.  Officer  McWatters 
acted  in  the  matter,  not  only  as  an  ordinary  member  of  the 
police  force,  but  in  the  capacity  of  a  detective,  and  won 
great  credit  by  his  sagacity. 

"  An  important  arrest  was  effected  in  Brooklyn  last 
Tuesday,  the  particulars  of  which  have  been  suppressed 
up  to  the  present  time.  The  Treasury  Department  at 
Washington  have  long  been  aware  that  the  business  of 


110  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

counterfeiting  greenbacks  and  postal  currency  has  been  car- 
ried on  to  an  alarming  extent  at  different  points  throughout 
the  country,  but  their  endeavors  to  arrest  the  guilty  par- 
ties have,  with  a  few  exceptions,  been  attended  with  fail- 
ure, or  only  partial  success.  One  exceedingly  skilful 
engraver  of  bogus  postal  currency  has  been  especially 
marked  as  the  most  dangerous  operator,  inasmuch  as  his 
execution  was  so  perfect  as  frequently  to  deceive  even  the 
Government  officials ;  and  the  boldness  of  the  counterfeiter 
was  almost  as  great  as  his  skill.  The  man  in  question  is 
an  English  engraver,  by  the-name  of  Charles  J.  Roberts. 
The  best  Government  detectives  have  been  on  his  track 
for  six  mouths,  without  succeeding  in  finding  him,  until 
last  Tuesday,  when  his  arrest  was  effected  in  Brooklyn, 
by  Messrs.  R.  R.  Lowell  and  A.  J.  Otto,  detectives  in  the 
service  of  the  Treasury  Department,  with  the  assistance 
of  Officer  McWatters,  of  the  Twenty-Sixth  Metropolitan 
Precinct. 

"  The  operations  of  Roberts  have  been  mainly  confined 
to  Philadelphia,  in  the  suburbs  of  which  city  his  "  money 
mill "  was  situated.  The  last  counterfeit  pieces  which  he 
made,  and  which,  in  an  indirect  manner,  led  to  his  arrest, 
were  copies  of  the  latest  issue  of  fifty  cent  postal  curren- 
cy. They  are  of  steel,  and  the  impression  from  them  is 
so  beautiful  and  perfect,  as  to  be  entirely  undistinguisha- 
ble  from  that  of  the  genuine  plates.  Upon  this  counter- 
feit the  criminal  artist  had  exerted  his  skill  with  the  most 
elaborate  patience  and  precision,  intending  to  make  it,  in 
every  sense,  a  perfect  resemblance,  which  would  even  es- 
cape the  suspicion  of  the  Government  detectives. 

"  But  though  an  engraver,  Roberts  was  not  a  printer. 
His  plate  was  perfection,  but  unaided,  or  assisted  only  by 
mediocre  printers,  he  could  not  produce  an  impression 
equally  perfect.  He  therefore  left  Philadelphia  a  short 
time  ago  to  seek  the  services  of  a  Brooklyn  printer,  whom 
he  understood  to  have  been  in  the  counterfeiting  business, 
and  who  was  well  known  to  be  a  mechanic  of  extraordi- 
nary skill.  Unluckily  for  the  English  operator,  this  printer 


EXTENSIVE   COUNTERFEITING.  Ill 

was  in  the  service  of  the  Government  detectives,  who 
were,  therefore,  promptly  informed  of  the  whereabouts  of 
the  game  for  which  they  had  so  long  been  in  pursuit. 

"  Messrs.  Lowell  and  Otto,  McWatters  and  others,  ac- 
cordingly surprised  Roberts  in  his  Brooklyn  retreat,  on 
Tuesday  morning  last,  at  9-30.  The  counterfeiter  made  a 
desperate  resistance,  swearing  that  he  would  die  sooner 
than  be  taken  ;  but  the  detectives  were  too  many  for  him. 
He  was  knocked  down,  disarmed,  and  speedily  lodged  in 
the  Raymond  Street  jail. 

"  The  arrest  was  kept  a  profound  secret,  to  allow  the 
detectives  time  to  effect  the  seizure  of  the  plates  and 
counterfeit  money  already  manufactured  in  Philadelphia, 
which  they  were  unable  to  do  prior  to  the  arrest.  They 
also  knew  of  twenty  thousand  dollars  in  the  fraudulent 
currency,  which  the  manufacturer  had  brought  with  him 
to  Brooklyn,  and  which  they  hoped  to  procure.  After 
lodging  their  prisoner  in  confinement,  they  immediately 
set  out  for  Philadelphia,  found  the  mill,  and  seized  its  con- 
tents, comprising  the  plates,  tools,  presses,  fifty  thousand 
dollars'  worth  of  the  fraudulent  currency,  all  in  fifty  cent 
postage  stamps.  Some  of  it  was  in  an  unfinished  state, 
but  the  detectives  declare  that  the  completed  issues  would 
have  deceived  them  instantly  ;  that  they  would  never  have 
doubted  their  genuineness.  But  they  were  outwitted  by 
the  prisoner,  so  far  as  the  counterfeits  in  Brooklyn  were 
concerned.  During  the  absence  of  his  captors,  Roberts 
managed  to  have  the  following  letter  conveyed  to  "his  mis- 
tress and  confederate :  — 

"  '  BROOKLYN,  November  — ,  1865. 

"  '  MARY  :  Please  go  at  once,  when  you  receive  this,  and  tell  Louisa  to 
come  and  see  me  at  once.  Tell  her  to  clean  things  away.  I  am  at  Ray- 
mond Street  jail.  Please  go  some  roundabout  way,  and  take  care  nobody 
follows  you.  Tell  Louisa  to  keep  cool.  I  am  all  right.  Do  this  right 
away,  please,  to-night,  and  oblige, 

"  '  Yours,  CHARLES  J.  ROBERTS. 

"  '  MRS.  LLOYD,  corner  North  First  Street  and 
Third  Street,  Brooklyn,  E.  D.' 


112  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

"  This  note  was  conveyed  to  the  above  address  by  the 
brother  of  the  sheriff  who  had  the  prisoner  in  charge, 
whence  it  reached  'Louisa,'  who,  of  course, '  cleaned  things 
away/  much  to  the  disappointment  of  the  detectives, 
when  they  called  for  the  purpose  of  making  the  seizure. 
The  guilty  brother  of  the  sheriff  has  fled,  and  has  thus 
far  effected  his  escape. 

"  The  detectives  are  now  in  pursuit  of  a  confederate  of 
Roberts,  and  they  are  quite  confident  of  soon  capturing 
him.  Since  his  incarceration  Roberts  has  confessed  every- 
thing. He  says  that  the  plate  which  has  been  seized  was 
intended  for  his  final  and  greatest  effort.  If  the  detectives 
had  only  held  off  for  another  week  he  would  have  made 
one  hundred  thousand  dollars,  and  been  in  Europe  enjoy- 
ing it.  We  understand  that  Roberts's  new  counterfeits, 
to  the  extent  of  twenty  thousand  dollars,  are  already  afloat. 

"  Overton,  the  counterfeiter  of  twenty-five  cent  stamps, 
who  was  arrested  some  time  ago,  pleaded  guilty  on  Friday 
last.  Roberts  will  also  probably  be  speedily  convicted,  and, 
as  he  is  not  so  fortunate  as  to  have  '  a  wife  and  nine  chil- 
dren/ there  is  no  likelihood  of  his  receiving  the  hasty 
pardon  which  was  recently  granted  to  Antonio  Rosa,  a 
similar  criminal." 


THE  GAMBLER'S  WAX  FINGER. 


CHARLES     LEGATE  —  A     FORGER — STUDYING    HIM     UP — FIFTY    THOUSAND 

DOLLARS,  HIS   "PRIZE" DESCRIPTION    OF    LEGATE NO    TWO    PERSONS 

EVER     AGREE     IN     DESCRIBING     ANOTHER A     MARK     HIT    UPON START 

FOR     ST.    LOUIS MUSINGS CURIOUS     INCIDENTS    OF     MY    JOURNEY A 

GENEALOGICAL    "DODGE" ON     LEGATE'S     TRACK     AT    LAST ST.    LOUIS 

REACHED OF  MY  STAY  THERE LEAVE  FOR  NEW  ORLEANS  PER  STEAM- 
ER—  A  GENIAL  CROWD  OF  MEN  AND  WOMEN  ON  BOARD CHARACTER- 
ISTICS OF  A  MISSISSIPPI  "VOYAGE"  —  NAPOLEON,  ARKANSAS  —  SOME 

"  CHARACTERS  "    COME     ON     BOARD     THERE  A     GAMBLING     SCENE     ON 

BOARD  —  ONE  JACOBS  TAKES  A  PART  —  A  PRIVATE  CONFERENCE  WITH 
JACOB'S  NEGRO  SERVANT  —  A  TERRIFIC  FIGHT  ON  BOARD  AMONG  THE 

GAMBLERS JACOBS    SET    UPON,    AND    MAKES    A    BRAVE    DEFENCE  —  HOW 

I    DISCOVERED    "  JACOBS  "    TO    BE    PROBABLY    LEGATE,    IN    THE     MELEE 

HE  IS  BADLY   BRUISED  —  HIS    LIFE    DESPAIRED  OF  —  WE    ARRIVE    IN    NEW 

ORLEANS  —  JACOBS'    IDENTIFICATION     AS     LEGATE LEGATE     PROVES    TO 

BE  VERY  RICH  —  A  CURIOUS  VISIT  TO  AN  ITALIAN  ARTIST'S  STUDIO  — 
A  NOVEL  MEDICINE  ADMINISTERED  TO  8IGNORE  CANCEMI,  THE  8IC£ 
ARTIST  —  HE  GETS  WELL  AT  ONCE. 

EARLY  in  my  detective  life,  when  I  was  more  ready 
than  now  to  accept  business  which  might  lead  me  far 
from  home,  I  was  commissioned  by  a  New  York  mercan- 
tile house  to  go  to  St.  Louis  first,  and  "  anywhere  else 
thereafter  on  the  two  continents  "  (as  the  senior  member 
of  the  house  fervently  defined  my  latitude)  where  my 
thread  might  lead,  to  work  up  a  subtle  case  of  forgery  to 
the  amount  of  about  fifty  thousand  dollars,  out  of  which 
the  house  had  been  defrauded  by  one  Charles  Legate,  a 
Canadian  by  birth,  but  combining  in  himself  all  the  craft 
of  an  Italian,  with  the  address  of  the  politest  Frenchman, 
and  the  bold  perseverance  and  self-complacency  of  a  Lon- 
don "  speculator."  The  task  before  me  was  a  difficult  one, 
and  at  that  time  more  than  now  I  craved  "  desperate 

5*         113 


1U  KXOTS   UNTIED. 

jobs,"  entering  into  them  with  an  enthusiasm  proportioned 
to  the  trials  and  dangers  they  involved. 

After  a  thorough  study  in  every  particular  of  the  corre- 
spondence between  Legate  and  the  house,  which  covered 
a  long  period  of  time,  and  in  which  was  disclosed  tome,  as 
I  thought,  a  pretty  clear  understanding  of  the  man  in  all 
his  various  moods  and  systems  of  fraudulent  pursuit,  and 
having  gathered  from  the  members  of  the  house  every  par- 
ticular in  regard  to  the  personal  appearance  of  Legate,  of 
which  they  could  possess  me,  I  started  on  my  mission. 
The  house  had  been  unable  for  some  time  to  get  any  word 
from  Legate,  or  any  tidings  of  his  recent  whereabouts 
from  others ;  so  we  felt  certain  that  I  should  not  find  him 
at  St.  Louis,  the  point  from  which  they  had  last  heard  from 
him,  and  where  they  had  evidence  he  had  for  some  weeks 
resided ;  so  I  was  even  unusually  particular  in  my  inqui- 
ries of  the  firm  as  to  Legate's  mode  of  dress,  the  peculiari- 
ties of  his  manner,  and  all  possible  personal  indices.  Legate 
was  one  of  those  men  whom  it  is  difficult  to  describe,  being 
of  medium  height,  having  black  eyes  and  black  hair,  a 
nose  neither  large  nor  small,  mouth  of  medium  size, 
teeth  the  same,  nothing  peculiar  about  his  cast,  and  his 
complexion  sometimes  quite  light,  at  others  "reddish." 
There's  nothing  more  difficult  to  determine  by  inquiry 
from  others  than  a  man's  complexion,  no  two  persons  see- 
ing it  alike.  He  dressed  neither  gaudily  nor  carelessly,  and 
though  my  informants  all  agreed  that  he  was  a  man  of 
consummate  address,  yet  none  of  them  could  by  imitation 
give  me  any  definite  representation  of  his  manner. 

Almost  in  despair  of  learning  anything  at  all  definite  about 
his  personnel,  which  might  enable  me  to  identify  Legate,  I 
finally  said,  "  Gentlemen,  almost  everybody  is  in  some 
way  deformed  or  ill-formed  —  nose  a  little  to  one  side  —  one 
foot  larger  than  the  other,  leading  to  a  habit  of  standing 
on  it  more  firmly  than  on  the  other  —  one  shoulder  higher 
than  the  other  —  an  arm  a  little  out  of  shape  —  hand  stiff 
—  fingers  gone,  or  something  of  th«  sort." 


HIT   THE  NAIL   ON   THE  HEAD.  115 

"  See  here,"  exclaimed  Mr.  'Harris,  a  junior  member  of 
the  firm,  interrupting  me,  and  resting  his  face  pensively  for 
a  half  minute  on  his  hand,  the  elbow  of  which  was  pressed 
upon  the  table  at  which  we  sat.  "  Ah,  yes ;  I  have  it. 
You've  hit  the  nail  on  the  head.  I  remember  noticing 
once,  when  Legate  dined  with  me  at  Delmonico's,  that  the 
end,  or  about  half,  of  his  little  finger  of  the  left  hand  was 
gone.  He  doesn't  show  it  much.  I  remember  I  looked  a 
second  time  before  I  fully  assured  myself  that  what  I  first 
thought  I  discovered  was  so.  He  is  as  adroit  about  con- 
cealing that,  as  he  is  in  his  general  proceedings."  I  felt 
great  relief  to  learn  so  much,  and  bidding  my  employers 
good  day,  found  myself,  as  speedily  as  I  well  could,  on  the 
way  to  St.  Louis,  taking  my  course  up  the  river,  and  on  via 
the  New  York  Central  Railroad.  I  suppose  that  it  is  the 
fact  with  every  business  man  when  travelling  in  the  pur- 
suit of  his  occupation,  either  as  a  merchant  going  to  the 
big  cities  to  buy  goods,  the  speculator  hunting  out  a 
good  investment  somewhere  in  real  estate,  —  no  matter 
what  the  business,  —  to  be  more  or  less  occupied  in 
thought  regarding  it.  But  no  man  has  half  or  a  tenth  part 
so  muck  occasion  for  constant  weariness  about  his  business 
as  has  the  detective  officer,  whether  he  be  in  pursuit  of  an 
escaped  villain,  working  up  a  civil  case,  searching  for  tes- 
timony in  a  given  cause,  or  what  not ;  for  however  deep 
his  theories,  or  well  laid  his  plans,  some  accident  or  incident, 
apparently  trifling  in  itself,  may  occur  to  give  him  in  a 
moment  more  light  than  he  might  otherwise  obtain  in  a 
month's  searching  and  study  —  a  fact  which  is  ever  up- 
permost in  my  mind  when  in  the  pursuit  of  my  calling, 
and  I  endeavor  to  turn  everything  possible  to  account. 
It  so  happened,  that  when  along  about  Syracuse  on  the 
cars,  I  overheard  some  men,  who  were  evidently  enjoying 
each  other's  society  greatly  in  the  narration  of  stories  and 
experiences,  saying  something  about  "home"  and  St.  Louis; 
and  I  fancied  they  were,  as  proved  to  be  the  case,  resi- 
dents of.  that  city;  and  I  became  consequently  quite 


116  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

interested  in  them,  hoping  that  something  would  occur 
on  their  way  to  allow  me,  without  obtrusion,  to  make 
their  acquaintance ;  for  they  were  both  men  who  appar- 
ently know  "  what  is  going  on  around  them,"  and  very 
possibly  might  know  Legate,  or  something  about  him, 
which  might  serve  me.  Indeed,  I  half  fancied  that  one  of 
them  might  be  Legate  himself;  for  he  would  answer  the 
description  given  me  of  that  person  as  well  as  anybody  I 
should  be  apt  to  find  in  a  day's  travel ;  and  I  was  more 
than  half  confirmed  in  my  suspicions,  as  you  can  readily 
surmise,  when  I  discovered  that  thfe  traveller  was  lacking 
the  little  finger,  or  nearly  all  of  it,  on  the  left  hand  !  Of 
course,  thus  aroused,  I  became  very  watchful,  and  devised 
various  plans  of  getting  into  the  acquaintance  of  the  gentle- 
men as  soon  as  might  be.  But  the  cars  rolled  on  and  on,  and 
no  chance  occurred  to  place  myself  in  their  immediate 
presence,  although  I  walked  up  and  down  the  aisle  of  the 
cars,  occasionally  lingering  by  this  or  that  seat,  and 
passing  a  word  with  the  occupants ;  but  somehow  I  could 
not  get  at  the  men  in  question  in  this  or  any  other 
like  way  ;  but  1  kept  myself  as  much  as  possible  with- 
in hearing  of  their  ludicrous,  comical,  or  exciting  stories, 
over  which,  at  times,  they  laughed  immoderately. 

Eventually,  as  the  cars  were  starting  on  from  a  station 
at  which  we  stopped  for  a  moment,  there  came  on  board  a 
fine,  brusque,  jolly,  but  courtly-looking  man,  of  that  class 
who  bear  about  them  the  unmistakable  evidences  of  good 
breeding,  frankness,  and  honor,  and  whose  associates  are 
never  less  than  respectable  people,  and  who,  as  he  brushed 
down  the  aisle  of  the  car  in  search  of  a  seat,  accosted  the 
man  upon  whom  in  particular  I  had  my  eye,  — 

"  Ah,  Mr.  Hendricks  !  I  am  very  glad  to  meet  you,"  ex- 
tending  bis  hand  and  giving  him  a  cordial  grasp  and 
"shake"  which  assured  me  that  the  man  Hendricks  was  a 
very  different  character  from  the  Mr.  Legate  in  search  of 
whom  I  was  making  my  journey ;  and  so  my  "  air  castles," 
founded  upon  suspicion,  came  to  the  ground,  I.-know  not 


INCIDENTS   OF  MY  JOURNEY.  117 

why,  but  I  really  felt  a  relief  to  find  that  it  was  not  Legate, 
after  all,  notwithstanding  it  would  have  been  a  happy  cir- 
cumstance for  me,  had  Mr.  Hendricks  really  been  he. 

But  I  listened  still  to  the  St.  Lousians'  story-telling, 
which  grew  more  and  more  loud  as  we  moved  on,  in  con- 
sequence, I  suppose,  of  their  occasional  attention  to  a  little 
flask  of  wine  which  each  gentleman  carried ;  but  they 
did  not  become  boisterous.  Mr.  Hendricks  was  narrating 
to  his  friend,  —  whose  name  by  this  time  I  had  discovered 
to  be  Phelps,  —  what  was  evidently  an  intensely  interesting 
story  to  the  latter,  when  he,  striking  his  hand  very  heavily 
upon  his  leg,  exclaimed,  "  That  Legate  was  one  of  the  most 
accomplished  villains  —  no  softer  word  will  do  —  that  I 
ever  heard  of." 

"  Ah,  ha  !  "  I  thought  to  myself,  "  now  I  am  in  the  right 
company  to  get  a  clew  to  the  fellow.  But  stop ;  he  said 
"  was,"  not  is.  I  wonder  if  Legate  is  dead :  perhaps  he 
is ;  and  I  became  quite  fearful  that  he  might  be,  and  so  my 
mission  prove  entirely  fruitless.  But  I  could  see  no  chance 
to  break  in  upon  their  conversation,  here,  or  make  their 
acquaintance.  "  TJiat  Legate,"  too,  might  also  be  another 
than  the  Charles  Legate,  whom  I  was  seeking.  What  shall 
I  do?  and  I  pondered  over  the  matter.  Finally  I  made 
the  bold  resolution  to  interrupt  the  gentlemen  at  the  first 
half-favorable  opportunity,  my  seat  being  one  back  of 
theirs,  on  the  other  side  of  the  car,  and  so  near  that  I 
might  do  so  quite  readily.  While  talking  of  this  man  Le- 
gate, their  conversation  was,  in  the  main,  more  subdued,  and 
as  if  half  confidential,  than  upon  other  topics,  which  made 
it  the  more  difficult  for  me  to  interpolate  a  query,  for  I  had 
by  this  time  resolved  upon  my  plan. 

Presently  I  heard  Mr.  Hendricks  say, "  The  last  I  heard 
of  him,  he'd  gone  to  Mexico,"  I  fancied  this  must  relate  to 
Legate,  and  began  to  think  that  my  journey  might  indeed 
extend  "  over  the  two  continents,"  according  to  my  condi- 
tional orders  on  starting.  Presently  I  heard  the  name 
Legate,  and  as  Messrs.  Hendricks  and  Phelps  were  at  this 


118  KNOTS    UNTIED. 

time  in  the  height  of  their  jolly  humor,  I  fancied  they 
wouldn't  mind  the  obtrusion.  I  stepped  from  my  seat  to 
theirs,  and  said,  "  Gentlemen,  you'll  pardon  me,  but  I  am 
somewhat  interested  in  the  genealogy  of  the  Legate  family 
both  at  the  west  and  east ;  and  just  hearing  you  speak  the 
name  Legate,  it  occurred  to  me  that  perhaps  I  could  get  a 
new  name  to  add  to  my  list.  Is  it  a  gentleman  of  the  west- 
ern branch  of  whom  you  were  speaking  ?  " 

"  0,  no,  sir,"  replied  Mr.  Hendricks  ;  "  the  man  we  were 
speaking  of  doesn't  belong  to  the  United  States  at  all.  He 
was  (and  is,  if  alive)  a  Canadian,  who  lived  for  a  while  at 
St.  Louis.  Are  you  a  Legate,  sir,  or  a  relative  of  the  fami- 
ly ?  allow  me  to  ask." 

"  No,  sir ;  simply  a  general  genealogist.  You  know  all 
men  have  their  weaknesses :  genealogical  studies  are 
among  mine." 

"  I.asked,"  said  he,  "  because,  if  your  name  was  Legate, 
you  might  have  been  offended,  if  I  had  told  you  that  the 
Legate  we  were  talking  about  wouldn't  add  any  grace  to 
your  family  list." 

"  Ah,  ha !  then  I  infer  that  he  might  have  been  at  least 
a  man  of  bad  habits  —  perhaps  a  dishonest  one." 

"  Well,  the  public  opinion  in  St.  Louis  is,  that  this  man 
Legate  wasn't  very  honest,  however  good  his  general  hab- 
its may  have  been." 

"  I  am  sorry,"  said  I,  "  that  any  member  of  the  Legato 
family  anywhere  should  bring  disgrace  upon  the  name ; 
but  we  can't  always  help  these  things — a  pretty  good 
family  generally  throughout  the  country,  I  find.  IVnnit 
me  to  ask,  what  was  this  Legate's  first  name  ?  perhaps  I 
have  heard  of  him  before." 

"Charles,"  said  Mr.  Hendricks;  "or  familiarly,  among 
his  old  acquaintances,  '  Charley  Black  Eyes  Legate/  to 
distinguish  him  from  a  blue-eyed  gentleman  by  the  same 
name.  His  French  friends,  too,  —  there  are  a  great  many 
French-speaking  people  in  St.  Louis, —  called  him  '  Charley 
Noir  (Black  —  short  for  black  eyes.'  )  " 


LEGATE,   "A  PINK  OF  A  MAN."  119 

Having  learned  so  much,  I  was  not  anxious  to  press  my 
inquiries,  at  that  time,  beyond  simply  asking  if  he  was  still 
residing  in  St.  Louis,  and  was  assured  that  he  had  de- 
parted— nobody  knew  to  what  point  —  nine  months  before. 
I  managed,  before  we  arrived  in  St.  Louis,  to  make  the 
further  acquaintance  of  these  gentlemen,  without  letting 
them  at  all  into  my  business  ;  indeed,  so  cordial  had  they 
become  as  to  insist  on  calling  on  me  the  next  day  after  my 
arrival  at  the  Planter's  Hotel,  and  giving  me  a  long  ride 
about  the  city. 

During  the  rido  I  referred  to  Legate,  and  learned  from 
them  that  he  was  a  swindler  and  a  gambler ;  that  for  a 
while  he  moved  in  the  best  society  in  St..  Louis,  and  was 
thought  a  "  pink  of  a  man,"  possessing  good  manners,  and 
being  an  unusually  interesting  colloquist  and  story-teller. 
He  was  considerable  of  a  "  romancer  among  the  ladies," 
said  Hendricks. 

"  Better  say  necromancer ;  that  would  be  nearer  the 
truth,"  suggested  Mr.  Phelps. 

"  0,"  said  I,  "  a  man  given,  in  short,  to  wine,  women,  and 
cards,  you  mean  ?  " 

"  Yes,  exactly ;  but  a  man  might  be  all  that,  and  not  be 
a  Legate,"  responded  Hendricks.  "  The  fact  is,  sir,  this 
Legate  is  a  most  unscrupulous  villain  —  a  man  who  would 
hesitate  at  nothing.  If  I  am  rightly  informed,  he  made  a 
murderous  assault  in  New  Orleans  once  upon  an  old  friend 
who  happened  to  cross  him  in  some  way.  It  was  in  that 
encounter,  Phelps,  that  he  lost  his  finger,  I've  heard." 

I  could  no  longer  have  any  doubt  that  I  was  on  the 
right  track,  and  I  felt  that  there  could  be  no  danger  in  con- 
fiding my  special  business  in  St.  Louis  to  these  men,  who 
might  be  able  to  give  me  great  assistance,  possibly.  So  I 
told  them  that  I  was  hunting  this  same  Charles  Legate,  of 
the  frauds  he  had  perpetrated  upon  the  New  York  house, 
and  that  I  wished  to  find  him  within  a  given  time  in  order 
to  secure  a  certain  amount  of  property  in  Canada,  which, 
after  a  certain  period,  would  be  so  disposed  of  as  to  be  of  no 


120  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

avail  to  my  employers,  and  that  I  was  willing  to  give  any 
reasonable  amount  for  information  which  might  enable  me 
to  reach  him. 

My  friends  told  me  that  they  thought  my  case  an  almost 
hopeless  one,  that  Legate's  sagacity  could  outwit  the  very 
d — 1,  and  that  he  was  the  most  uncertain  man  to  "  track  " 
in  the  world ;  but  they  would  do  all  in  their  power  to  find 
out  who  were  his  principal  associates,  during  the  last  of 
his  stay  in  St.  Louis,  the  time,  as  near  as  might  be  deter- 
mined, when  he  left,  and  what  course  he  took.  They  had 
heard  that  he  had  gone  to  Mexico ;  but  that  was  probably 
only  a  "  blinder." 

I  staid  in  St.  Louis  five  days,  prosecuting  my  inquiries ; 
but  all  I  could  learn  of  any  import  was,  that  the  last  which 
was  known  of  Legate  in  St.  Louis,  he  was  constantly  with 
a  certain  pack  of  gamblers,  of  rather  a  desperate  order, 
and  that,  with  his  quick  temper,  it  was  possible  that  he  had 
got  into  a  fight  (as  some  had  suspected),  and  been  made 
way  with  —  possibly  thrown  into  the  Mississippi.  This 
was  not  decidedly  encouraging,  and  I  was  on  the  point  of 
writing  back  to  my  employers  that  it  was  useless  to  search 
for  Legate  longer  at  that  time  ;  that  they  would  have  to 
trust  to  some  future  accident  to  reveal  him,  if  still  alive, 
indeed.  But  having  another  affair  on  hand  at  the  same 
time,  which  necessarily  called  me  to  New  Orleans  before 
returning  to  New  York,  I  thought  better  of  the  matter, 
and  merely  wrote  to  my  New  York  friends,  that  having 
gotten  all  possible  clew  to  Legate  in  St.  Louis,  I  should 
take  boat  next  day  for  New  Orleans,  from  which  point  they 
would  hear  from  me  duly. 

The  next  afternoon  I  took  the  steamer  "  Continental," 
after  having  made  all  arrangements  with  my  new  friends 
in  St.  Louis  to  apprise  me  if  ever  Legate  "  turned  up  "  in 
that  city ;  and  down  the  mighty  Mississippi  the  proud  boat 
bore  me  and  a  large  number  of  the  most  cheerful,  genial, 
and  hearty  men  and  women  I  ever  travelled  with.  There's 
a  certain  frankness  and  generosity  about  the  western  and 


AT  NAPOLEON,  ARKANSAS.  121 

southern  people  which  captivated  me,  when  I  first  went 
among  them,  at  once  ;  but  though  I  had  often  been  in  the 
west,  I  had  never  encountered  a  finer  class  of  travellers 
than  departed  with  me  that  day  from  St.  Louis,  on  board 
the  well-tried  steamer  Continental. 

Nothing  special,  save  the  usual  jollity,  mirth,  good  living, 
copious  drinking,  and  lively  card-playing,  which  character- 
ized a  "  voyage  down  the  Mississippi,"  especially  in  those 
days,  occurred,  and  being  not  over  well,  I  kept  my  berth 
considerably  —  until  our  arrival  at  Napoleon,  Arkansas, 
where  we  stopped  to  "  wood  up  "  and  take  on  passengers, 
accessions  of  whom  we  had  had  all  along  our  course,  at 
every  stopping-place.  At  Napoleon  quite  a  concourse  came 
on,  mainly  of  not  well-to-do  people,  mostly  migrating  to  Texas 
in  order  to  better  their  worldly  condition,  as  they  thought. 
Poor  fellows !  I  fear  many  of  them  found  themselves 
doomed  to  disappointment.  But  to  my  story.  Among  the 
on-comers  at  Napoleon  were  three  men  of  marked  indi- 
vidualities. They  came  aboard  separately.  One  of  them 
was  quite  large  and  comely,  neatly  dressed,  in  the  style 
then  prevailing  at  the  North  ;  nothing  about  him  but  cer- 
tain provincialisms  of  speech  to  indicate  that  he  might 
not  be  a  northern  man.  The  other  two  wore  long  hair,  and 
beards,  and  slouched  hats,  and  had  the  air  of  well-to-do 
planters  of  middle  age.  One  of  them  was  accompanied 
by  a  negro,  the  most  obsequious  of  all  his  race,  and 
who,  whenever  ordered  by  his  master  to  do  anything,  al- 
ways took  great  care  to  indicate  his  willingness  to  obey 
by  saying,  very  obsequiously,  "  Yes,  Massa  Colonel,"  or 
"  Yes,  Massa  Jacobs ; "  by  which  fact  I  of  course  learned 
what  the  negro  supposed,  at  least,  his  master's  name  to  be , 
but  there  was  something  about  this  man's  appearance 
which  excited  my  suspicion,  at  first,  that  he  might  not  be 
a  planter,  after  all. 

It  was  near  nightfall  when  we  departed  from  Napoleon 
mid  it  was  not  long  after  the  cabin  was  lighted  up  that  the 
usual  card-playing  was  resumed;  and  these   three   men 
8 


122  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

• 

crowded,  with  others,  round  the  tables,  to  look  on  at  fir*?., 
and  of  course  to  take  part  when  occasion  might  offer.  Ja- 
cobs was  particularly  observant  of  the  games  as  they  pro- 
ceeded. Although  I  saw  that  he  had  peculiar  talents  for 
the  gaming-table,  I  wondered  why  he  lingered  so  long 
before  taking  a  hand.  But  he  was  biding  his  time.  The 
bar,  of  course,  was  pretty  well  patronized,  and  the  finest 
looking  of  the  three  men  in  question  grew  apparently 
more  and  more  mellow.  The  stakes  at  this  time  were  not 
large,  but  the  players  were  waxing  more  and  more  earnest, 
when  this  man  —  assuming  to  be  slightly  intoxicated  — 
exclaimed,  "  Gentlemen,  I  say,  I  say  —  do  you  hear  me? 
—  that  this  fun  is  rather  slow.  Is  there  anybody  here  that 
wants  to  play  for  something  worth  while  ?  See  here,"  said 
he,  "  strangers,  please  let  me  draw  up  my  seat,''  pushing 
his  chair  up  between  those  of  two  players ;  "  see  here  ; 
there's  a  cool  two  thousand,  that  I  want  to  double  or 
lose  to-night,'J  and  poured  from  a  red  bag  a  heap  of  gold, 
over  a  portion  of  which  he  clapped  his  large  hand.  "  I 
am  in  for  it.  Is  there  anybody  that  wants  to  make  this 
money  ?  " 

"  Well,  stranger,"  said  Jacobs,  "  when  these  players  can 
give  us  room,  I'm  your  man ;  that  is,  till  my  pile's  gone. 
'Tain't  so  big  as  yours,  and  it  ought  to  go  for  a  new  nigger 
down  to  Orleans.  I  must  have  another  hand ;  but  your 
challenge  is  rather  provoking,  I  must  confess,  and  I  don't 
care  if  I  try  you." 

The  players,  moved  by  that  curiosity  which  such  a  pro- 
ceeding between  "  strangers  "  would  be  apt  to  excite,  po- 
litely made  room  for  the  combatants,  and  in  their  turn 
became  lookers  on.  The  large  man  played  well,  but  he 
was  (apparently)  intoxicated,  and  now  and  then  "  bungled," 
giving  the  game  into  Jacobs'  hands  at  times.  My  curiosity 
about  Jacobs  was,  I  know  not  really  why,  constantly  in- 
creasing, and  when  the  third  of  that  trio  had  entered 
the  lists  with  a  partner,  I  managed  to  slip  out  down  to  the 


THE  "SPECUMATERS."  123 

lower  deck,  where  Jacobs  had  ordered  his  servant,  and  fall 
into  conversation  with  him. 

"Are  you  Mr.  Jacobs'  nigger?" 

"  Yes,  massa  ;  J'se  Massa  Jacob8'  body  sarvant." 

"  Your  master's  a  jolly  fellow  —  isn't  he  ?  He's  a  plant- 
er, I  suppose — has  a  great  number  of  "hands"  —  hasn't 
he?" 

"  No,  Massa  Jacobs  don't  plant.  He's  a  banker,  or  a 
specumater,  as  they  call  um  up  there." 

"  Up  where  ?  " 

"  Little  Rock  —  we  lives  about  five  miles  wess  of  Little 
Rock." 

"  O,  then  he  don't  plant.  What  do  those  speculators 
do  ?  I  never  heard  of  them  before." 

"  0,  massa,  youfc  quare  —  ain't  you  ?  You  never  knows 
about  the  specumaters  ?  That's  quare." 

"  But  tell  me  what  they  do ; "  and  the  darky,  turning 
up  the  whites  of  his  eyes  in  a  most  inimitable  manner, 
and  cocking  his  head  to  one  side,  while  he  put  his  big 
hands  into  the  attitude  of  one  about  to  shuffle  cards,  went 
through  the  motions  of  dealing  off  cards  with  a  celerity 
that  indicated  that  he,  too,  might  be  a  "  specumater,"  as  he 
doubtless  was,  among  the  darkies, 'having  taken  lessons 
in  his  master's  office. 

When  he  had  finished  this  exhibition,  he  whirled  about 
on  his  heel  in  true  negro  style,  and  with  great  glee  shuffled 
a  half  dozen  steps,  and  ended  with  an  air  of  triumph,  which 
indicated  to  me  that  he  thought  his  master  a  great'man. 
The  slaves  used,  despite  all  they  might  suffer  from  a 
cruel  master,  to  take  great  pride  in  him  if  he  excelled  in 
anything,  or  was  a  noted  man. 

"Your  master's  a  great  speculator,  then?  I  reckon  I 
had  not  better  try  him,  eh  ?  " 

"  Tell  troof,  massa,  I  reckon  dare's  nobody  on  dis  heah 
boat  that  can  beat  massa;"  and  he  looked  very  serious, 
and  spoke  low,  as  if  kindly  warning  me. 

I  had  learned  enough,  and  proceeded  to  the  cabin,  and 


124  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

watched  the  play.  For  a  while  Jacobs  played  with  the  large 
"  stranger,"  sometimes  losing  a  little,  sometimes  winning 
more,  and  at  last  gave  up  the  play,  having  won  quite  a 
sum. 

Noting  Jacobs'  success,  and  the  "  stranger,"  too,  having 
ordered  on  sundry  glasses  of  liquor  during  the  play,  and 
having  become  apparently  more  heedless,  others  anxiously 
sought  his  place.  A  party  of  four  was  made  up,  and  the 
large  "  stranger  "  and  the  third  one  formed  two  as  partners. 
Jacobs  posted  himself  where  he  could  signal  to  the  large 
"  stranger,"  who,  with  his  partner,  went  on  now  winning 
great  successes.  Frequent  charges  of  "  cheating  "  were 
indulged  in  by  the  losers,  and  Jacobs  was  appealed  to  to 
decide  the  points  in  issue,  which  he  always  did  favora- 
bly for  the  large  "  stranger."  But  ad* the  losses  grew 
heavier,  the  suffering  parties  became  incensed,  and  charged 
Jacobs  as  cooperator  with  the  large  "  stranger  "  and  his 
partner;  and  finally  some  one  on  board  declared  that 
he  knew  Jacobs  and  the  large  "  stranger  "  to  be  chums ; 
that  they  travelled  together  up  and  down  the  river,  swin- 
dling everybody  they  could  "  rope  in  "  to  play.  This,  being 
whispered  about  at  first,  became  finally  talked  aloud  ;  and 
then  commenced  fearful  criminations  and  recriminations 
among  the  parties.  Pistols  and  knives  were  freely  bran- 
dished, and  a  grand  melee  seemed  on  the  point  of  breaking 
out ;  and  it  did  break  at  last,  fearfully.  All  the  while 
my  eye  was  upon  Jacobs.  I  could  not,  for  some  reason, 
avert  it.  Somehow  he  seemed  to  me  to  wonderfully  re- 
semble the  description  I  had  had  of  Legate ;  but  there  w.is 
this  difficulty  in  the  way  of  my  suspicions.  Jacobs  wore 
upon  the  little  finger  of  his  left  hand  a  large  seal-ring,  and 
there  was  unmistakably  a  full-formed  finger,  which  articu- 
lated at  the  joints  properly, and  I  must  be  mistaken.  Dur- 
ing the  earlier  part  of  the  disturbance,  which  the  officers 
of  the  boat  tried  in  vain  to  quell,  the  big  "  stranger  "  had 
been  the  chief  centre  of  abuse  and  attack ;  but  suddenly 
some  one  exclaimed,  "  That  black-muzzled  wretch  is  worse- 


• 


A  FEARFUL  FIGHT.  127 

than  the  big  one,"  and  the  whole  party  of  sufferers  turned 
instantly  upon  him.  Jacobs  was  a  brave  fellow,  and  with 
cocked  revolver  in  hand  breasted  the  whole,  and  swore  he 
would  kill  the  first  man  who  laid  hands  on  him,  standing 
then  on  one  side  of  the  cabin  with  his  back  to  the  door  of 
a  state-room.  Suddenly  a  passenger,  who  had  retired  for 
the  night,  opened  the  door  behind  him,  and  Jacobs,  being 
stiffly  braced  against  it,  "  lurched  "  for  an  instant,  when  an 
agile,  wiry  fellow  of  the  angry  crowd  suddenly  jumped  for- 
ward and  grasped  his  revolver,  turning  its  muzzle  upwards, 
when  off  went  the  pistol  —  the  first  shot,  which  was  a  sig- 
nal foi*  a  desperate  conflict,  in  which  Jacobs  struggled  hard 
for  the  possession  of  his  revolver,  but  was  overpowered,  and 
most  severely  beaten,  so  much  so,  that  he  had  finally  to  be 
carried  to  his  berth ;  and  I  followed  the  crowd  that  bore 
him  there.  He  was  speechless  and  nearly  dead,  I  thought, 
they  laid  him  in  his  bunk.  I  noticed  that  the  ring  had 
one  from  his  finger,  and  with  it,  lo !  the  end  of  the  finger 
also,  leaving  only  the  first  joint  and  part  of  the  second. 
I  examined  the  stump,  and  saw  that  it  was  old.  No  further 
doubt  rested  on  my  mind  that  Jacobs  and  Legate  were  one 
and  the  same,  and  I  immediately  called  the  attention  of 
the  passengers  to  the  loss  of  the  ring  and  the  finger,  and 
caused  search  to  be  made  for  the  same,  which  we  found 
evidently  unharmed,  having  somehow  fallen  into  the  state- 
room, the  opening  of  the  door  of  which  first  threw  Jacobs 
off  from  his  balance.  I  took  charge  of  the  finger,  which 
was  made  of  hardened  wax,  as  my  trophy,  and  some  one,  I 
knew  not  who,  took  the  ring. 

The  big  "  stranger,"  who  was  badly  bruised  too,  was  not 
BO  much  wounded  that  he  could  not  be  about  next  day, 
but  kept  aloof  from  poor  Jacobs,  probably  because  he  had 
protested  utter  unacquaintance  with  him,  and  the  next 
night,  with  the  third  "  stranger,"  got  off  the  boat,  it  was 
supposed,  at  the  point  where  the  boat  stopped  to  wood,  for 
the  next  day  they  were  nowhere  to  be  found  on  the  boat ; 
but  poor  Jacobs  was  so  severly  handled  that  his  life  was 


128  KNOTS    UNTIED. 

despaired  of  by  a  doctor  on  board,  and  we  took  him  along 
to  New  Orleans.  Meanwhile  I  had  made  my  suspicions 
and  business  known  to  the  captain  of  the  boat,  and  we 
took  means  for  Jacobs'  detention  on  board  after  the  rest 
of  the  passengers  should  leave.  But,  poor  fellow  !  there 
was  hardly  need  in  his  case  for  so  much  caution  or  pre- 
vision, for  when  we  arrived  in  the  city,  Jacobs  could  not 
have  left  the  boat  had  he  tried,  so  weak  and  sick  was  he. 
I  left  him  on  board,  and  hastened  to  the  office  of  a  friend 
of  mine,  once  a  detective  in  New  York,  and  told  him  the 
story,  asking  his  counsel  how  best  to  proceed. 

"  Why,'1  said  he,  "  this  is  a  strange  affair ;  but  I  think 
I  can  put  you  in  the  way  at  once  of  identifying  this  Ja- 
cobs as  the  very  Legate  whom  you  are  after.  Indeed, 
rest  assured  that  he  is  your  man,  without  doubt."  Going 
to  his  drawer,  he  produced  and  showed  to  me  an  advertise- 
ment of  a  year  before,  offering  a  reward  of  two  thousan<l 
dollars  for  the  arrest  of  one  "  Charles  Legate,  alias  Charles 
L.  Moiitford,"  giving  a  description  of  his  person,  but  point- 
ing especially  to  the  fact  that  he  was  wanting  a  portion 
of  the  little  finger  of  the  left  hand.  "  You  see,"  said  my 
friend,  "  that  we  have  an  interest  in  the  fellow  as  well  as 
you.  If  he  is  our  man,  we  are  all '  hunky-dory/  "  said  he, 
"  for  he  is  very  rich,  as  we  have  found  out  —  know  where 
his  money  is." 

"  Rich  ?  "  asked  I.  "  Why,  then,  does  he  continue  to  lead 
the  life  he  does  ?  " 

"  Why  ?  Why,  indeed,  such  a  question  from  an  old  de- 
tective like  you  astonishes  me :  it  wouldn't,  though,  if  a 
woman,  or  a  fool,  asked  it,"  said  he,  giving  me  a  curious 
wink.  Don't  you  know  yet  that  the  Mississippi  is  infested 
with  old  gamblers  rich  as  Jews,  and  who  can't  give  up 
their  pious  trade  to  save  their  lives  ?  Come  along."  And 
he  took  me  down  St.  Louis  Street  a  ways,  and  stepped  into 
a  side  street,  and  standing  before  a  door  a  moment,  said, 
"  Give  me  the  finger,  and  follow  me."  Wo  mounted  a  couple 
of  flights  of  dirty  stairs,  and  my  friend  opened  a  door  into 


THE    ITALIAN'S    STUDIO.  129 

a  sort  of  anatomical  museum  of  old  gypsum  and  wax  casts, 
and  all  sorts  of  small  sculptural  devices. 

"  Mr.  Cancemi  at  home  ?  "  asked  my  friend  of  a  weird- 
looking  lad,  whose  hands  were  besmeared  with  the  plaster 
he  was  working.  "  Si  signore,"  (yes,  sir),  was  the  reply  ; 
"  but  my  fader  is  much  sick,  questo  giorno  "  (to-day). 

"  But  I  must  see  him  a  moment.  Won't  you  go  ask  him 
to  come  down  ?  " 

The  family,  it  seemed,  occupied  rooms  in  the  loft  above. 
The  boy  hurried  off,  and  presently  the  father  came  down 
with  him,  almost  too  feeble  to  walk. 

"  Cancemi,"  said  my  friend,  "  you  are  sick ;  but  I've 
brought  you  some  medicine  that  will  cheer  you  up  at 
once." 

"  Ah,  Dio,"  exclaimed  the  old  Italian,  "  I  vish  it  be  so. 
I  am  much  ammalato  (sick) .  What  have  you  brought  ?  — 
Tell  quick." 

"  See  here  !  "  said  my  friend ;  "  did  you  ever  see  that 
before  ?  "  producing  the  finger.  The  old  Italian  seemed  a 
new  man  as  his  eyes  dilated  at  the  sight  with  wonder, 
and  he  went  into  raptures  over  the  matter,  the  reason  for 
which  I  could  not  understand,  and  in  his  broken  English 
muttered  a  thousand  exclamations  of  surprise  and  joy.  Of 
course  he  identified  the  finger  as  the  one  he  had  made  for 
the  "villain-scoundrel  Legate."  Legate,  I  found,  had 
never  paid  the  Italian  for  his  skillful  handiwork,  and  he 
had  been  promised  a  portion  of  the  reward,  if  my  friend 
should  succeed  in  earning  it  —  hence  his  joy. 

We  left  the  old  Italian  soon,  and  proceeded  to  the  boat, 
where  we  confronted  Jacobs,  and  made  him  acknowledge 
his  identity  with  Legate.  My  business  was  made  known 
to  him.  He  lay  on  the  boat  for  two  days,  until  her  return 
trip,  when  we  had  him  carefully  taken  to  a  private  hospi- 
tal, where  he  could,  beyond  possibility  of  escape,  be  con- 
fined,  and  awaited  his  slow  recovery  under  the  best  medi- 
cal and  other  attendance  we  could  procure.  I  telegraphed 
to  my  parties  in  New  York,  one  of  whom  came  on  directly, 


130  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

reaching  New  Orleans  within  ten  days  from  that  time  ;  and 
before  two  weeks  had  passed  from  the  time  of  his  arrival, 
we  had  settled  matters  with  the  now  penitent,  because 
caged,  Legate ;  and  the  New  Orleans  parties  who  had 
offered  the  reward  were  now  called  in  by  my  detective 
friend,  and  settled  their  affairs  with  him  by  accepting  a 
mortgage  he  held  for  twenty-five  thousand  dollars  on  a 
sugar  plantation  in  the  Opelousas  country,  paying  the  re- 
ward to  my  friend,  and  losing  nothing  in  the  result. 

Only  for  the  advertisement  in  the  New  Orleans  paper, 
probably  Legate  would  never  have  thought  to  procure  a 
false  finger ;  but  for  which  I  should  never  have  been  able 
to  satisfy  myself  that  Jacobs,  in  his  bruised  and  battered 
state,  was  the  identical  Legate,  and  might  have  left  him 
without  further  investigation  on  the  boat. 

The  old  Italian  recovered  his  health  speedily  in  his  joy 
over  Legate's  capture,  and  was  not  forgotten  by  my  friend, 
who,  by  the  way,  but  for  this  old  artist,  would  of  course 
have  never  known  of  Legate's  attempt  at  disguising  the 
only  peculiar  mark  about  him,  and  would  not,  therefore, 
have  been  so  sure  of  his  identity  when  I  told  him  my  story. 
"  Straws  show  which  way  the  wind  blows,"  and  "  finger:*,'' 
though  they  be  inanimate  and  waxen,  may  "  point,"  you 
see,  unmistakably  to  a  villain. 


LOTTERY  TICKET,  No.  1710. 


JL.  DIGNIFIED   REAL-ESTATE    HOLDER,  VERT   WEALTHY,  LOSES    SEVEN   THOU- 
SAND TWO  HUNDRED  AND  FIFTY- FIVE  DOLLARS  —  OUR  FIRST  COUNCIL 

AT  THE  HOWARD  HOUSE VISIT  TO  HIS  HOUSE  TO  EXAMINE  HIS  SAFE 

AND  SERVANTS  —  A  LOTTERY  TICKET,  NO.  1710,  FOUND  IN  THE  SAFE  — 

HOW  CAME  THIS  MYSTERIOUS  PAPER  THERE? CONCLUSIONS  THEREON 

VISIT  TO  BALTIMORE,  AND  PLANS  LAID  IN  CONJUNCTION  WITH   THE 

LOTTERY  AGENT  TO  CATCH  THE  THIEF THE  TICKET  "  DRAWS  "  —  TUB 

NEW  YORK  AGENCY  "MANAGED"  —  TRAP  TO  IDENTIFY  THE  THIEF  — 

THE   SECURITY  AND    "SOLITUDE"   OF   A   GREAT   CITY A  NEW  YORK 

BANKER MR.   LATIMER   VISITS   A   GAMBLING-HOUSE   IN   DISGUISE.  

IDENTIFIES  THE  SUSPECTED  YOUNG  MAN  —  THE  AGENT  AT  BALTIMORE 
WAXES  GLEEFUL  —  HIS  PLAN  OF  OPERATIONS  OVERRULED  —  MEETING 
OF  "INTERESTED  PARTIES"  AT  THE  OFFICE  IN  BALTIMORE  —  A  LITTLE 

GAME  PLAYED  UPON  THE  NEW  YORK  AGENT MR.  WORDEN,  THE  THIEF, 

IDENTIFIES  THE  TICKET,  AND  FALLS  INTO  THE  TRAP  OF  A  PRE-ARRANGED 
"DRAFT"  —  DISCLOSES  SOME  OF  THE  IDENTICAL  MONEY  STOLEN — WE 
ARREST  HIM  —  EXCITING  SCRAMBLE  —  THE  MONEY  RECOVERED — WOR- 
DEN'S  AFTER  LIFE. 

"  YOUR  name  is ,  I  believe,  sir  ?  "  asked  a  tall,  gray- 
haired  gentleman  of  me  one  evening,  as  I  was  stepping 
out  of  the  Carleton  House,  a  hotel  then  on  the  corner  of 
Broadway  and  Leonard  Street. 

"  Yes,  that's  my  name,"  offering  my  hand  to  receive  the 
already  extended  hand  of  the  gentleman. 

"  I  have  sought  you,"  said  he,  "  at  the  suggestion  of 
my  friend  and  lawyer,  James  T.  Brady ;  who  tells  me  that 
you  are  able,  if  anybody  is,  to  help  me  in  my  loss." 

'•'You've  had  a  loss?  Well,  sir,  you  wish  to  tell  me 
about  it.  Shall  we  go  in  here,  or  where  shall  we  go  to 
talk  it  over." 

"  Can  we  not  walk  up  Broadway,  and  I  tell  you  during 
our  walk  ?  " 

„  131 


132  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

"  Probably  that  would  not  be  the  best  way,"  I  replied, 
"  for  it  is  doubtless  as  a  detective  that  you  need  me,  and 
we  might  meet  somebody  who  knows  me  as  such,  and  who 
might  be  the  very  last  person  whom  I  should  like  to  have 
see  us  together,"  I  replied. 

"  You  are  right,  sir,"  said  he,  smiling.  "  Your  caution 
shows  me  that  you  understand  your  business ;  but  it  is 
too  late  to  go  far  up  town  to  my  house.  —  I  have  it.  I'll 
call  at  the  Howard  House,  take  a  private  room,  and  you 
follow,  in  half  an  hour,  say,  and  finding  this  name  on  the 
register  with  my  room,  come  up.  Here's  my  card.  Come 
directly  to  the  room,  and  say  nothing." 

"  That's  a  good  plan,  sir.  I  will  be  there ;  "  and  he 
left,  and  I,  having  finished  my  business  at  the  Carleton, 
wandered  slowly  up  Broadway  to  kill  time,  wondering 
what  such  a  stately,  dignified,  cool-headed  sort  of  a  look- 
ing man  as  he  —  a  real  estate  holder  to  large  amount,  a 
man  whom  everybody  knew  by  reputation  as  one  of  the 
most  quiet  in  the  city  —  could  have  for  me  to  do.  I  sus- 
pected forgery,  arson,  or  some  attempt  at  it,  and  a  dozen 
other  things.  But  I  drove  them  all  out  of  mind  in  a  few 
minutes,  for  it  is  never  well  for  a  detective  to  indulge  in 
anticipations  in  such  a  juncture  of  affairs ;  aiid  meeting 
just  then  an  old  friend,  beguiled  a  few  minutes  with  him 
along  Broadway,  and  finally  taking  out  my  watch,  saw  I 
had  only  ample  time  to  get  to  the  Howard  at  the  time  ap- 
pointed, and  so  "suddenly  recollected  "  an  appointment, 
excused  myself  to  my  friend,  sought  the  Howard  and  the 
gentleman  there,  whom  I  readily  found  in  waiting  for  me. 

"  You  are  here  on  the  moment,"  said  he,  as  he  closed 
and  locked  the  door  on  my  entry.  "  Take  this  seat,  if  you 
please,  and  I'll  try  to  be  short  with  my  story." 

"  Go  on,  BIT,"  said  I ;  but  please  don't  be  in  too  much 
haste.  I  have  plenty  of  time;  but  tell  me  all  your  story 
as  you  would,  and  probably  did,  to  Mr.  Brady." 

"  Well,  sir,  day  before  yesterday  morning  I  missed  from 
my  safe,  at  my  house,  seven  thousand  two  hundred  and 


STORY   OF   THE   LOSS.  133 

fifty-five  dollars,  which  I  placed  there  the  night  before, 
having  received  most  of  it  that  day,  at  an  hour  too  late  to 
make  deposit  of  it  in  bank ;  "  and  here  he  paused. 

"  Well,  sir,"  said  I,  "  who  took  it?  That's  the  question, 
I  presume,  which  you  wish  to  solve." 

"  Yes,  that,  of  course,  is  the  point ;  but  I  can't  fix  my 
suspicions  upon  anybody." 

"  You  say  that  most  of  this  money  was  received  after 
banking  hours.  Suppose  you  tell  me  next  where  and  of 
whom  you  received  it,  and  in  what  amounts,  for  I  infer 
that  you  did  not  receive  it  in  a  lump." 

"  No ;  I  collected  it  partly  from  rentals  due,  and  some 
came  to  me  from  the  country,  —  notes  due,  —  and  some 
from  the  sale  of  a  cargo  of  pressed  hay  over  at  Jersey 
City,  and  I  did  not  get  around  in  time  to  put  it  in  bank, 
such  as  I  had,  before  closing  hours,"  looking  at  memo- 
randa. 

"Well,  I  am  glad  you  have  memoranda  of  the  amounts. 
Now  tell  me  where  you  received  these,  each  one ;  "  and  he 
went  on  to  tell  me,  in  detail,  where,  and  who  was  near  by, 
if  anybody,  in  each  case  where  a  tenant  or  other  debtor 
paid  him  money.  I  listened  intently,  and  could  get  at 
nothing  worthy  of  note  till  he  came  to  the  hay  transaction 
at  Jersey  City.  It  appeared  that  there  were  several  per- 
sons standing  about  at  the  time  of  the  payment  of  the 
money  to  my  client  (call  him  Latimer,  for  further  conven- 
ience), mostly  working-men,  some  dealers,  loafers,  arid 
two  or  three  well-dressed,  but  rather  dashily-dressed,  young 
men.  Mr.  Latimer  had  been  obliged  to  take  out  consider- 
able money  from  his  own  purse,  in  order  the  better  to 
arrange  it  to  put  in  the  amount  then  received ;  and  feeling 
that  he  had  quite  an  amount  of  money,  even  at  that  time, 
and  he  added  some  before  he  reached  home,  put  his  purse 
in  his  inner  vest  pocket,  thinking  of  nothing  woree  than 
possibly  encountering  pickpockets,  or  losing  his  money  by 
accident  on  the  way.  In  his  vest  pocket  he  thought  it 


134  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

secure,  and  secure  it  was  to  take  home,  but  not  secure  for 
keeping. 

The  result  of  our  conference  was  that  evening,  that  I 
should  be  obliged  to  go  with  Mr.  Latimer  to  his  home  the 
next  morning,  when  he  would  call  at  my  office  for  me.  I 
could  not  go  that  night,  and  perhaps  it  was  as  well ;  for  I 
had  a  business  appointment  which  led  me,  not  an  hour 
after  parting  with  Mr.  Latimer,  into  certain  haunts  where 
I  fancied,  —  it  was  mere  imagination,  if  it  were  not  instinc- 
tive perception,  in  which  I  do  not  much  believe,  although 
many  mysterious  things  have  occurred  in  my  life  which 
seemed  to  be  governed  or  directed  by  some  subtle  law, 
which  the  human  brain  is  not  yet  strong  enough  to  discov- 
er, —  where  I  fancied,  I  say,  that  I  saw  some  of  the  money 
which  Mr.  Latimer  had  lost,  displayed,  and  distributed  in 
dissipation.  In  short,  I  imagined  that  I  had  stumbled 
upon  the  thief,  and  had  I  known  the  character  of  the  bills, 
which  Mr.  Latimer,  however,  could  not  tell  me  much  about, 
I  might  have  seized  my  man  then  and  there. 

But  the  next  morning  I  visited  Mr.  Latimer's  house  in 
an  up-town  street,  which  was  not  then,  as  now,  compactly 
builded  ;  at  least,  in  the  portion  of  it  where  he  dwelt.  I  ex- 
amined everything  about  the  premises,  concluded  where  a 
thief  might  have  gotten  into  the  house  without  much 
trouble,  and  finally  commenced  questioning  Mr.  Latimer 
about  his  family,  the  servants,  etc.  None  of  Mr.  L.'s  fam- 
ily, except  his  wife,  were  at  home.  Two  boys,  or  young 
men,  were  at  school,  rather  at  college  one  of  them,  and 
both  far  away,  and  the  daughters  were  at  the  female  sem- 
inary in  Cazenovia.  As  to  the  servants,  in  whose  honesty 
Mr.  Latimer  had  the  utmost  confidence,  I  had  them  called 
into  my  presence,  and  questioned  them  about  the  condi- 
tion of  the  house  on  the  night  of  the  robbery.  One  of 
them  heard  some  slight  noise,  at  some  time  between  twelve 
o'clock  and  four  in  the  morning ;  was  not  definite.  The 
others  slept  soundly ;  heard  nothing.  They  did  not  seem 
to  me  likely  to  be  connected  with  anybody,  or  to  have 


HOW  WAS   THE   SAFE   UNLOCKED?  135 

lovers  who  would  be  apt  to  be  of  the  class  who  might 
have  robbed  the  safe.  Besides,  nobody,  not  even  Mrs. 
Latimer,  knew  that  Mr.  L.  had  deposited  any  amount 
of  money  in  his  safe  that  night.  He  was  of  the  order  of 
men  who  attend  strictly  to  "  their  own  business,"  too 
strictly,  sometimes,  when  evidence  is  wanted  especially. 
His  bedroom  adjoined  the  room  in  which  the  safe  stood, 
and  was  so  situated  in  regard  to  a  pair  of  "  back  stairs," 
that  if  the  robber  had  come  in  from  the  back  (on  the 
theory  of  his  possible  complicity  with  the  servants),  he 
could  have  hardly  gotten  into  the  room  without  disturbing 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Latimer,  unless  on  that  night,  which  was 
probably  the  case,  they  slept  with  unusual  soundness.  I 
concluded  that  the  robber  must  be  an  expert  one,  and 
somehow  I  constantly  referred  in  mind  to  the  fellow  whom 
I  have  alluded  to  before  as  having  been  seen  liberally  dis- 
pensing money.  He  seemed  to  me  competent  for  the  busi- 
ness ;  but  there  was  one  thing  which  I  left  to  the  last, 
which  arose  in  my  mind  at  first  on  my  interview  with  Mr. 
Latimer  at  the  Howard;  but  I  said  nothing  of  it  then,  for 
I  had  learned  that  the  best  way  is  to  approach  the  most 
serious  troubles  softly ;  as  often  the  "  course  of  things,"  as 
they  take  shape  in  an  interview,  will  better  point  out  how 
this  or  that  mystery  occurred  than  all  the  attempted  solu- 
tions which  one  might,  a  priori,  project  for  a  week,  and 
that  one  thing  which  perplexed  me  was,  How  did  the  rob- 
ber unlock  that  safe?  He  must  either  have  been  familiar 
with  the  house  and  the  safe,  and  perhaps  had  a  key  to  it, 
or  he  must  have  carried  about  him,  probably,  several  safe 
keys,  one  of  which  happened  to  fit  (and  the  key  to  this 
safe  was  a  small  one,  fifty  of  the  like  size  of  which  would 
not  much  trouble  a  burglar  to  carry),  or  he  must  have 
gotten  possession  of  Mr.  Latimer's  key.  But  his  key  was 
in  his  vest  pocket,  and  his  clothes  were  on  a  chair  at  the 
head  of  his  bed,  he  said,  on  my  inquiring,—  there's  where 
he  left  them,  and  there  was  where  he  found  them  in  the 
morning,  —  and  he  was  sure  he  locked  his  safe  securely 


136  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

after  putting  the  money  in.  I  finally,  as  the  concluding 
portion  of  my  examination,  asked  Mr.  Latimer  to  let  me 
see  the  inside  of  his  safe,  and  to  show  me  where  he  de- 
posited the  money.  He  unlocked  and  opened  the  safe,— 
a  simple  lock  concern,  proof  really  against  nothing  but  fire, 
perhaps ;  for  although  it  was  supposed  that  the  keyhole 
was  so  small,  and  the  safe  so  constructed,  that  burglars 
could  not  get  sufficient  powder  into  it  to  blow  it  up,  yet 
it  would  not  have  stood  a  minute  against  the  skill  and 
power  of  professional  burglars ;  but  to  open  it,  as  they 
would  have  done,  would  have  necessitated  noise  enough  to  . 
have  awakened  Mr.  Latimer,  especially  as  the  bedroom 
door  was  open.  Mr.  Latimer  had  put  the  money  into  a 
little  drawer  in  the  safe,  and  turned  the  key  of  that,  which 
key,  however,  remained  in  the  drawer  Jock.  But  the 
drawer  was  tight,  and  we  tried  a  dozen  times  to  pull  it 
out  without  making  a  creaking  noise,  without  avail;  so  I 
concluded  that,  on  the  whole,  Mr.  Latimer  and  his  wife 
had  slept  that  night  pretty  soundly. 

We  were  about  closing  the  safe  again,  —  I  having  made 
due  examination,  and  asked  all  necessary  questions,— 
when  Mr.  Latimer,  thinking  to  arrange  a  half  dozen  or  so 
papers  which  had  been  thrown  loosely  upon  the  bottom 
of  the  safe,  took  them  up  in  one  grasp  of  the  hand,  and 
commenced  to  put  them  in  file,  when  out  of  his  hand 
dropped  a  little  white  card  with  figures  on  it,  which  ar- 
rested his  attention.  He  picked  it  up,  looked  at  it  with 
astonishment,  and  said,  "  That's  a  curious  thing  to  be 
here,"  handing  it  to  me.  "  You  will  perhaps  think  me  a 
sporting  man,  a  devotee  of  the  Goddess  of  Luck  ;  but  I 
don't  know  who  put  that  here."  "  Who  has  access  to 
your  safe  besides  yourself?  "  "  My  wife  ;  she  ha*  a  key." 
"  0,"  said  1,  "  perhaps  she's  put  it  here  then."  "  Not  she," 
eaid  he.  ."  She'd  turn  pale  with  horror  if  she  had  found 
that  here,  in  fear  that  I  might  be  trifling  with  lotteries. 
A  brother  of  hers  spent  a  good-sized  fortune  in  lottery 
tickets,  and  died  of  disappointment  and  chagrin  over  his 


THE   MYSTERY  OF  THE   SAFE.  L>7 

course.  Not  she  ! "  "  Yes,  I  know,"  said  I ;  "  still  she 
may  have  put  it  there,  if  not  for  herself,  for  one  of  the 
servants,  perhaps ;  for  you  know  many  servants  have  a 
mania  for  '  trying  their  luck.'  "  So  Mrs.  Latimer  was 
called,  and  asked  about  the  lottery  ticket.  There  was  no 
mistaking  her  seriousness  when  she  said  that  if  one  of  the 
servants  had  asked  her  to  lock  up  the  ticket  for  safety, 
she  would  have  taken  it  and  torn  it  to  pieces  before  her 
eyes.  I  was  satisfied.  But  how  carne  the  ticket  there. 
"  No.  1710,  Great  Havana  Consolidated  Lottery,"  to  be 
drawn  on  such  a  day,  through  the  house  of  Henry  Colton 
&  Co.,  Baltimore.  This  is  as  near  as  the  notes  of  my  diary 
of  those  days,  much  worn,  permit  me  to  recount  the  words 
and  figures  of  the  ticket  as  I  took  them  down  in  pencil.  I 
studied  the  ticket,  and  saw  from  a  note  at  the  bottom  that 
some  days  would  elapse  before  the  drawing  was  to  come 
off.  It  was  a  fresh  ticket  then,  evidently.  But  how  did 
it  get  there  ?  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Latimer  knew  nothing  about 
it  —  that  was  clear.  It  had  not  been  there  long  —  that 
was  equally  clear.  I  questioned  Mr.  Latimer  about  the 
condition  of  the  loose  papers  in  the  bottom  of  the  safe.  It 
appeared  he  did  not  observe  much  order  in  them,  so  I  could 
learn  nothing  by  that  query.  Finally,  I  concluded  that 
perhaps  in  pulling  out  the  drawer  the  robber  experienced 
considerable  trouble,  and  that  if  he  had  the  ticket  in  his 
vest  pocket  at  the  time,  in  bending  over,  and  exerting 
some  force  to  pull  out  the  drawer,  he  might  have  dropped 
it  on  the  floor;  and  perhaps  his  curiosity  led  him  to  pull 
out  the  papers  too,  some  of  which  fell  from  his  hand,  and 
he  picked  them  up,  the  ticket  along  with  them.  I  settled 
upon  this,  and  there  was  a  clew  to  the  robber,  if  nothing 
more.  But  how  did  he  unlock  the  safe?  This  question 
remained  unanswered.  Perhaps  with  a  false  key,  as  I 
have  before  suggested  ;  but  this  lock  was  one  supposed  to 
need  a  special  key,  none  other  exactly  like  it  in  the  whole 
world.  After  we  had  finished  our  examination,  Mr.  Lat- 
imer closed  the  safe  door,  gave  a  turn  to  the  knob,  and 


133  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

jerked  out  the  key.  I  do  not  know  what  led  me  to  think 
of  it,  but  I  asked,  "Have  you  locked  it?"  "Yes,"  said 
he,  "  that's  all  you  have  to  do  to  lock  one  of  these  safes," 
at  the  same  time  taking  hold  of  the  knob,  and  pulling  it,  to 
show  me  how  securely  and  simply  it  was  fastened ;  when, 
lo,  open  came  the  door!  Mr.  Latiiner  was  confounded, 
a»d  I  confess  I  was  greatly  surprised.  It  might  have 
been  that  the  robber  that  night  found  as  easy  access  to 
the  drawer  as  Mr.  Latimer  then.  We  examined  the  work- 
ing of  the  lock  as  well  as  we  could,  and  found  that  some- 
thing must  be  deranged,  for  although  it  would,  on  turning 
the  knob,  give  a  "  thud,"  as  if  the  bolts  were  driven  home, 
it  did  not  always  put  them  in  place.  Mr.  Latiiner  had  his 
safe  repaired  after  that,  and  found  some  "  slide  "  in  the 
lock-work  a  little  out  of  place. 

But  I  had  gotten  the  ticket,  and  I  told  Mr.  Latimer  that 
we  must  work  out  the  problem  with  that,  or  fail ;  and  I 
sent  Mr.  Latimer  about  to  his  debtors,  who  had  paid  him 
the  stolen  money,  to  see  if  any  of  them  could  remember  the 
denominations  of  the  bills,  and  by  what  banks  issued,  which 
they  had  given  him.  He  found  something  in  his  search 
which  seemed  likely  to  serve  me.  I  gave  Mr.  Latimer 
my  theory  of  the  case,  and  pointed  out  to  him  the  course 
I  should  pursue,  and  we  concluded  that  a  week  would 
probably  bring  us  to  the  determination  to  try  longer,  or 
would  put  us  on  the  clear  track  of  the  robber  or  robbers, 
for  there  might  have  been  more  than  one.  Mr.  Latiiner 
authorized  me,  in  case  I  saw  fit,  to  offer  a  reward  of  five 
hundred  or  a  thousand  dollars  for  the  robbers,  or  double 
these  sums  for  the  robbers  and  the  money. 

lily  first  step  was  to  go  to  Baltimore,  where  I  learned 
that  the  ticket  was  genuine,  but  I  could  not  learn  the 
name  of  the  pers6n  to  whom  it  was  issued.  I  had  ob- 
tained it,  I  represented,  of  a  man  who  never  bought  tick- 
ets, and  was  curious  to  know  of  whom  he  got  it :  but  it  was 
of  no  use  to  inquire.  They  kept  faith  with  their  custom- 
ers. I  could  have  inquired,  with  perhaps  more  success,  of 


No.    1710   "DRAWS."  139 

the  agent  in  New  York,  but  I  dared  not  venture  to  see 
him.  Some  special  friend  of  his  might  have  bought  that 
number,  —  "  1710,"  —  and  he  would  tell  him  of  the  inquiry, 
and  the  robber  might  suspect  that  he  had  lost  it  on  Mr.  Lati- 
mer's  premises.  The  New  York  agent  had  fortunately 
made  his  report  to  the  "  general  office  "  in  Baltimore  a 
day  or  two  before.  I  left  the  lottery  office,  baffled  for  a 
moment,  but  I  soon  laid  a  plan.  If  this  ticket  wins,  —  and 
I  shall  know  by  the  drawn  numbers  as  published  in  the 
papers  immediately  after  the  drawing,  —  then  I  will  "lay 
in  "  with  the  ticket  agent,  with  the  bribe  or  "  reward  " 
of  five  hundred  or  a  thousand  dollars,  to  help  me  detect 
the  robber ;  and  if  the  ticket  fails  to  win,  I  will  make  the 
ticket  agent  my  confidant,  and  have  him  despatch  a  note 
to  the  person  to  whom  this  ticket  was  sold,  saying  that 
"1710  "  has  drawn  a  prize,  to  be  paid  on  presentation  of 
the  ticket ;  and  in  this  way  get  the  man  into  my  clutches. 
So  thinking  to  myself,  I  concluded  to  stop  in  Baltimore  till 
after  the  drawing,  which  occurred  three  days  from  that 
time. 

As  fortune  had  it,  the  ticket — "1710"-  — was  lucky, 
and  drew  a  prize  of  three  thousand  dollars.  I  went  to  the 
agent,  and  putting  him  under  the  seal  of  secrecy,  with  the 
prospect  of  five  hundred  dollars,  and  one  half  of  the  money 
drawn  by  the  ticket  besides,  we  arranged  to  catch  the 
robber,  if  possible.  The  New  York  agency  would  claim 
the  privilege  of  paying  the  three  thousand  dollars  itself, 
for  this  would  help  to  give  it  the  reputation  of  selling 
lucky  numbers,  and  increase  its  sales,  and  consequcntly 
its  profits.  Of  course  the  New  York  agency  was  alive  to 
its  interests;  but  where  was  the  ticket?  The  man  to 
whom  it  was  sold  was  expected  to  present  it  at  once  at 
the  New  York  agency ;  but  it  didn't  come,  and  he  was 
advised  of  its  having  drawn  a  prize.  But  it  was  lost,  he 
said ;  and  the  New  York  agency,  desirous  of  making  capi- 
tal for  itself,  ordered  the  payment  of  the  prize  money 
through  it,  advised  with  the  home  office.  It  was  finally 
9  6* 


140  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

concluded  that  the  buyer  might  make  affidavit,  before  a 
notary  public,  of  the  iact  that  he  purchased  the  ticket 
No.  1710;  that  he  Ijad  not  transferred  it  to  anybody  else  ; 
that  he  had  lost  it,  and  when.  And  it  was  suggested  that, 
as  possibly  the  ticket  might  yet  be  presented  by  somebody 
who  might  have  found  it,  it  would  be  well  for  the  buyer  to 
state  whether  he  had  given  it  any  private  mark — his  in- 
itials, or  something  else, —  which  is  often  done.  This  was 
done  to  excite  the  robber's  memory  about  it,  and  drew 
forth  from  him  a  statement  that  he  had  not  marked  the 
ticket,  but  remembered  that  it  was  "  clipped  "  in  a  certain 
way,  cutting  into  the  terminal  letter  of  a  lino  across  the 
end;  which  was  just  what  we  wanted,  as  it  identified  him, 
beyond  a  doubt,  as  the  real  purchaser.  Ho  swore  he  had 
not  transferred  the  ticket,  but  had  lost  it  somewhere,  as 
he  alleged  that  he  believed,  on  such  a  day  (which  chanced 
to  be  the  very  day  on  the  night  of  which  the  robbery  oc- 
curred), somewhere  between  the  corner  of  Fulton  Street 
and  Broadway  (where  was  located  then  a  day  gambling- 
saloon)  and  Union  Square.  This  was  indefinite  enough  for 
his  conscience,  I  presume.  Of  course  a  name  was  signed 
to  the  affidavit,  but  how  could  we  know  that  it  was  cor- 
rect ?  Together  with  this  came  the  agent's  affidavit  that  ho 
sold  to  such  a  person  the  ticket.  We  arranged  that  p.iy- 
jnent  should  bo  made  to  the  affiant  if  the  ticket  was  not 
presented  by  somebody  else  within  a  month  ;  and  if  it  were 
presented  before  that  time,  he  should  be  informed,  and  the 
proper  steps  taken  to  secure  him  his  money.  This  was 
communicated  to  the  New  York  agency,  and  I  left  for 
New  York  to  find  out  who  was  this  "  Charles  F.  Worden/' 
the  purported  purchaser  of  the  ticket ;  and  the  Baltimore 
Agent  came  on  to  see  the  New  York  agent,  and  adroitly 
draw  out  of  liim  a  personal  description  of  this  "  Worden," 
for  we  suspected  that  the  agent  and  ho  were  special 
friends.  The  Baltimore  agent  had  no  difficulty  in  execut- 
ing his  part  of  the  work,  and  indeed  effected  an  inter- 
view with  Worden,  whom,  with  the  New  York  agent,  he 


BALEFUL  INFLUENCE   OF  SAMPLE   ROOMS.          HI 

treated  to  a  superb  supper  at  the  Astor  House.  When 
he  came  to  give  me  a  detailed  account  of  the  fellow's  per- 
sonal appearance,  I  recognized  him,  especially  by  a  curi- 
ous bald  spot  on  the  left  side  of  the  head,  and  which  he 
took  some  pains  to  cover  by  pulling  his  long  hair  over  it, 
—  which,  however,  did  not  incline  to  stay  there,  —  as  the 
young  man  whom  I  had  seen  in  the  gambling  saloon  on  the 
night  that  Mr.  Latimer  first  consulted  me  at  the  Howard. 

I  now  felt  quite  sure  of  my  game ;  but  was  confident 
enough  that  I  should  find  that  the  young  man  bore  some 
other  name  than  "  Worden."  Suffice  it  that  it  was  the  work 
of  a  couple  of  days  only  before  I  had  my  man  in  tow,  knew 
all  about  him,  his  antecedents,  etc.  His  family  was  good. 
He  had  been  prepared  for  college,  at  the  Columbia  Col- 
lege Grammar  School ;  was  a  young  man  of  fair  average 
capacity,  but  by  his  dissipations  managed  to  make  him- 
self an  eyesore  to  his  family.  His  father,  who  was  a  well- 
to-do,  if  not  rich  merchant,  doing  business  in  Maiden  Lane, 
had,  in  order  to  "reform"  him,  "given  him  .up,"  and 
ordered  him  to  shirk  for  himself,  something  like  a  year 
before  this.  He  went  into  a  grocery  store,  being  unable 
to  get  work  elsewhere,  and  had  done  very  well  for  three 
or  four  months ;  but  there  was  a  private  room  in  the  back 
of  the  store  where  liquor  was  sold  by  the  glass  —  one  of 
thos£  places  which  are  now  known  by  the  felicitous  name, 
"Sample  Rooms,"  the  disgusting  frequency  of  which  all 
over  New  York,  and  in  many  other  cities,  is  so  remark- 
able ;  places  which  are  really  worse  than  the  open,  bars 
of  hotels,  or  the  regular  "  gin  mills  "  (if  I  may  be  permitted 
to  use  the  vulgar  phrase),  because  in  these  sly,  half-private 
places  is  it  that  most  young  men  learn  to  drink,  and  here 
it  is,  too,  where  many  a  man,  too  respectable  to  be  seen 
frequenting  the  open  liquor  stores  of  his  vicinity,  steals 
in  and  guzzles  his  potations,  on  the  sure  road  to  a  drunk- 
ard's fate — failure  in  business,  ruined  constitution,  and 
final  poverty  and  disgrace.  Here  the  young  man,  "  Wor- 
den,"  as  he  now  called  himself,  had  fallen  in  with  genial 


142  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

company,  who  camo  to  his  employers  to  "  buy  groceries," 
and  to  drink,  and  among  them  had  made  the  acquaintance, 
in  particular,  of  a  down-town  "  banker,"  who  boarded  in 
the  vicinity  of  the  grocery,  which  was  on  the  corner  of 

Bleecker  Street  and .     Thin  banker  was  a  fascinating 

fellow,  and  young  Worden  soon  fell  in  love  with  him.  By 
and  by  he  found  out  what  sort  of  a  "  banker "  was  his 
new-made  friend  —  the  same  who  kept  the  day  gambling- 
rooms  on  the  corner  of  Fulton  and  Broadway.  It  is  as- 
tonishing how  little  one  may  know  of  the  business  of  his 
neighbors  whom  he  meets  every  day  in  New  York,  unless 
he  takes  special  pains  to  find  out.  The  "  solitude  of  a 
great  city  "  is  no  mere  Byronic  fancy.  One  could  hardly 
be  more  solitary  in  the  dense  woods  than  a  man  may  be 
in  the  midst  of  the  throngs  of  men  and  women  he  may 
meet  in  New  York.  He  gees  them  —  that  is  all.  His 
heart  is  closed  to  them,  and  theirs  to  him,  as  much  as  if 
they  were  in  China,  and  he  the  "  lone  man  "  on  some 
island  of  the  West  Indies.  So  that  "banker"  passed  for 
a  rich,  active,  business  man,  in  the  vicinity  of  Bleecker 

Street  and ,  within  less  than  a  mile,  perhaps,  of  this 

nefarious  den.  Young  Worden  was  easily  led  on  till  he 
got  to  neglecting  his  business  when  sent  out  on  errands, 
or  down  town  to  the  wholesale  grocers ;  and  finally  the  gro- 
cer discharged  him  for  neglect  of  business ;  and  how  he  had 
lived  since  then  was  a  mystery  to  his  old  companions,*who 
found  him  afterwards  always  better  dressed.  The  secrets 
of  his  history,  from  the  time  of  his  discharge  up  to  the 
time  of  the  robbery,  as  I  finally  learned  them,  would  form 
an  interesting  chapter  by  themselves,  but  are  out  of  place 
here.  An  incident  in  his  career,  however,  may  yet  find 
place  in  these  papers,  because  it  was  interlinked  with  an 
extraordinary  case  which  at  another  time  I  worked  up,  and 
of  which  I  have  made  note,  in  order,  if  my  space  permit, 
to  recite  it  in  this  work.  It  must  suffice  now,  that  de- 
spair, resulting  from  the  loss  of  money  at  the  gambling- 
table,  and  which  he  was  not  for  some  days  able  to  win 


FURTHER  INVESTIGATIONS.  143 

back,  though  he  hazarded  his  last  dollar,  drove  the  young 
man  to  commit  a  small  robbery,  or  theft,  from  the  purse  of 
one  of  his  fellow-boarders,  when  the  latter. was  asleep  one 
night.  The  full  success  of  this  hardened  him,  and  led 
him  on.  If  detection  could  always  follow  the  first  offence, 
the  number  of  criminals  would  be  far  less.  But  few  will 
"  persevere  "  beyond  a  detection,  if  it  comes  early  enough 
in  their  career. 

I  had  made  sure  of  my  man.  But  he  was  not  caught 
yet,  by  any  means ;  besides,  the  Baltimore  agent  and  I  had 
something  further  to  do  together.  Upon  him  depended 
much.  I  had  the  ticket  in  my  possession,  and  the  young  man 
had  sworn  to  it  —  identified  it  in  his  affidavit,  to  be  sure  ; 
but  he  would  insist  that  he  lost  it,  and  that  somebody  who 
found  it  must  have  robbed  the  safe,  if  we  should  pounce 
upon  him  now.  So  I  went  to  Mr.  Latimer,  and  managed  to 
take  him,  in  proper  disguise,  to  a  gambling  saloon,  which  this 
young  man  frequented,  and  he  thought  he  recognized  him 
as  one  of  the  persons  standing  near  him  on  the  day  the  money 
for  the  hay  was  paid  him  in  Jersey  City ;  and  before  we  left 
the  saloon,  —  staid  half  an  hour  perhaps,  —  Mr.  Latimer 
was  quite  willing  to  swear  to  the  young  man's  identity  as 
one  of  those  present  at  the  hay  transaction.  But  this  would 
not  be  enough  to  convict  the  young  man,  unless  we  could 
find  some  of  the  stolen  money  upon  him,  or  among  his  effects, 
which  I  felt  sure  we  should  do,  for  I  saw  that  he  was  gam- 
bling those  days  sparely,  like  one  who  means  to  win,  and 
keep  what  he  wins.  I  reasoned  that  the  robbery  had  giv- 
en him  a  snug  little  capital ;  that  ho  felt  his  importance  as 
a  "  financial  man,"  and  that  perhaps  he  was  resolving  to 
gamble  but  little  more,  give  up  his  old  associates,  and  with 
what  he  had,  and  what  he  would  obtain  from  the  lottery, 
go  into  business,  and  perhaps  win  his  way  back  into  his 
father's  favor.  And  I  reasoned  rightly,  as  a  subsequent 
confession  of  the  young  man  proved. 

In  his  investigations  among  the  creditors  who  had  paid 
him  the  sum  stolen,  Mr.  Latimer  had  found  out  a  fact  on 


U4  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

which  I  was  relying  for  aid  in  the  course  of  the  work,  as 
1  have  intimated  before  :  and  resting  on  that  becoming 
important  in  the  line  of  evidence,  I  repaired  to  Baltimore, 
and  told  the  general  agent  that  I  thought  it  time  now  to 
draw  matters  to  a  close.  We  arranged  our  plans.  The 
New  York  agent  was  informed  that  the  ticket  had  been 
presented  at  the  general  office,  and  the  prize  demanded  J 
that  it  would  be  necessary  lor  the  young  man  and  himself 
to  come  on  to  Baltimore  to  meet  the  presenter  of  the  tick- 
et, and  that  ho  was  to  call  again  in  three  days.  The  gen- 
eral agent  was  in  great  glee  over  the  matter;  for  I  had 
arranged  with  him  that  he  should  have  the  whole  of  the 
three  thousand  dollar  prize  as  his  own,  if  he  w^uld  not 
demand  the  five  hundred  dollars  reward  of  me,  in  case  the 
matter  worked  out  rightly,  and  we  managed  to  get  back 
a  good  share  of  the  money  stolen  from  the  young  man. 
He  was  for  attacking  the  young  man  at  once,  as  soon  as 
we  could  get  him  into  the  private  office,  and  charging  him 
with  the  robbery  of  Mr.  Latimer's  safe  ;  overwhelming  him 
with  the  history  of  his  being  that  day  in  Jersey  City,  and 
showing  him  the  trap  we  had  set  to  get  him  to  identify 
the  ticket  so  minutely,  etc. ;  but  I  feared  that  the  young 
man  might  not  be  so  easily  taken  aback, -and  we  agreed 
to  wait  for  something  else  which  might,  in  the  negotiation, 
turn  up.  I  had  not  informed  the  agent  yet  of  what  Mr. 
Latimer  had  discovered  in  his  investigations  about  the  kind 
of  money  paid  him,  but  had  arranged  with  the  agent  that 
if  things  came  to  the  proper  point  he  should  offer  to  pay 
the  young  man  by  a  draft  on  New  York,  and  should  say 
to  him,  that  if  it  would  be  convenient  lie  would  rather 
make  the  draft  for  three  thousand  and  five  hundred  dollars, 
and  let  the  young  man  pay  him  five  hundred  dollar*,  as 
that  amount  would  draw  out  all  his  deposit,  and  close  ac- 
count with  the  bank  in  question,  he  having  determined  to 
do  his  business  with  another  bank.  So  much  I  had  asked 
which  he  said  lip  would  do  ;  and  duly  the  young  man  and 
the  agent  came  on.  We  had  a  private  conference  j  I  be- 


ON    A   TOM-FOOL'S   ERRAND  1  15 

ing  disguised,  with  spectacles  and  all,  as  the  legal  counsel- 
lor of  the  lottery  men.  The  agent  from  New  York  was 
present.  I  had  asked  the  young  man  many  questions 
about  the  ticket,  heard  the  New  York  agent's  story,  and 
given  my  advice  to  the  Baltimore  man  to  pay  it  to  him, 
but  to  send  for  the  "  other  man  "  who  held  the  ticket,  and 
who  was  said  to  be  waiting  the  result  of  things.  So  the 
New  York  agent  was  politely  asked  to  take  a  note  to  a  man 
quite  a  distance  off  from  the  lottery  office,  and  whom  the 
agent  had  informed  that  he  might  receive  a  note  that  day, 
and  instructed  what  to  do  in  such  case.  The  man  was  a 
store-keeper ;  was  very  polite  to  the  New  York  agent ;  bade 
him  be  seated  in  the  counting-room,  and  he  would  send  his 
boy  out  to  bring  in  the  man  indicated  in  the  note.  The  New 
York  agent  was  told  to  be  sure  to  get  the  man,  wait  till  he 
could  bring  him  along  with  him,  "  if  it  takes  three  hours," 
said  the  Baltimore  agent,  as  the  New  York  man  went  off. 

"  Y'es,  yes ;  depend  on  my  doing  the  business  right," 
responded  the  New  York  agent,  as  he  went  off  on  his  tom- 
fool's errand. 

Papers  were  given  the  young  man  to  read,  and  we  chatted 
together  a  little  ;  the  lottery  agent  having  gone  to  work  at 
his  business  desk  in  the  next  room.  A  half  hour  passed, 
and  then — "  This  is  dull  business.  I  must  go  to  my  office, 
and  come  back  if  needed,"  said  I  to  the  lottery  agent,  as 
I  opened  the  door  into  his  room.  "  When  shall  I  return  ?  " 
"  Stay  ;  he'll  be  back  soon."  «  No,"  said  I ;  "  I'll  go,  and 
return."  "Well,  please  don't  be  long  away,"  —  and  ho 
gave  me  a  significant  look,  which  the  young  man,  of 
course,  did  not  see.  I  went  off,  and  returning  in  about  a 
quarter  of  an  hour,  called  the  agent  into  the  private 
room,  and  said,  "  See  here  !  a  new  phase  in  affairs.  I  found 
that  man  waiting  at  my  office  to  consult  me  about  the 
ticket.  lie  said  he  knew  I  was  your  attorney,  and  would 
advise  Jiim  what  was  best;  he  didn't  want  any  fuss  about 
it.  This  was  after  I  told  him  I  was  quite  sure  that  the 
ticket  was  the  property  of  young  Mr.  Worden  hero ;  and 


1-1  (j  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

the  matter  is  left  entirely  with  me.  Sec!  I  have  the  tick- 
et  here  ;  do  you  recognize  it?"  asked  I  of  Worden,  present- 
ing it  to  him.  He  started  up,  looked  at  it,  and  with  a 
luce  full  of  joy,  exclaimed,  "  The  very  same:  don't  you 
remember  how  I  described  this  slip  here  in  my  affidavit?  " 
"  Well,  Mr.  Worden,  as  the  matter  is  left  with  me,  I  have 
no  doubt  the  ticket  is  yours;  and  of  course  the  agent  will 
pay  you  the  prize.  "  Yes,  of  course,"  said  the  agent ;  • "  stay 
here,  since  you  are  here,  and  I'll  make  the  due  entries,  etc., 
get  the  money,  and  be  back."  He  closed  the  door  behind 
him;  and  as  it  was  a  late  hour,  drawing  near  closing  time, 
told  the  clerks  he'd  give  them  a  part  of  a  holiday ;  and  bade 
them  to  be  on  hand  early  next  morning.  "  A  good  deal  of 
work  to  do  to-morrow,  you  know,"  said  he,  as  he  smilingly 
bowed  them  out. 

Presently,  after  a  delay,  however,  which  I  was  fearful 
would  excite  the  young  man's  curiosity,  if  nothing  more, 
the  agent  came  into  the  room,  and  told  Worden  that  he 
found  it  would  be  inconvenient  to  pay  the  three  thousand 
dollars  that  afternoon  in  money,  and  then  proposed  to  him 
to  take  the  draft  on  New  York,  of  which  I  have  before 
spoken.  Worden  compliantly  fell  in  with  the  suggestion ; 
said  he  would  cash  the  draft  for  the  balance.  He  was 
anxious,  he  said,  to  get  on  to  New  York  as  soon  as  might 
be ;  and,  "  by  the  way,"  said  he,  "  where's  my  friend,  Mr. 
?  »  _  (the  New  York  agent.)  «  Ah,"  replied  the  Balti- 
more agent,  "  he's  waiting  at  the  place  to  which  I  sent 
him  for  the  man."  "  Well,"  turning  to  his  watch,  "  there'll 
be  time  to  send  for  him  before  the  next  train  north,  after 
we  have  settled  the  matter."  He  went  to  his  desk,  drew 
the  check,  came  in  and  handed  it  to  Worden,  who,  laying 
it  on  the  table,  proceeded  to  take  out  his  wallet,  which  I 
noticed  was  heavily  loaded.  He  selected  five  one  hundred 
dollar  bills  and  handed  them  to  the  agent,  who  stepped 
into  the  next  room,  as  if  to  deposit  them  in  his  safe,  -  ay- 
ing,  "  I'll  be  back  in  a  moment,  Mr.  Worden.  Step  in  here, 
'  Counsellor,' "  said  he  to  me, "  and  tell  me  how  I  am  to  make 


THE  ARREST.  149 

this  entry"  —  for  the  want  of  something  better  to  say. 
I  followed,  and  he  showed  me  the  notes.  We  "  had  "  the 
young  man  !  Four  of  the  notes  bore  on  their  back,  in  writ- 
ing, the  business  card  of  one  of  the  men  who  had  paid  Mr. 
Latimer  money  on  that  day ;  the  notes  were  of  the  Bank 
of  America,  such  as  he  had  told  Mr.  Latimer  he  had  drawn 
that  day  from  bank,  and  he  had  indorsed  his  card  on  them 
not  an  hour  before  he  paid  hirn.  His  account  was  new 
with  that  bank.  He  had  no  other  than  six  of  those  one 
hundred  dollar  notes,  so  I  saw  our  game  was  sure,  and  I 
said  instantly,  "  Go  in  and  ask  Worden  if  he  can't  give  you 
two  fifties,  or  five  twenties  for  this  note,"  taking  up  the  one 
not  bearing  the  business  card.  He  did  so,  and  I  followed, 
and  instantly  that  Worden  drew  his  purse  to  accommodate 
him,  I  suddenly  knocked  the  purse  from  his  hand,  and 
caught  Worden  by  the  throat  — "  No  noise,  you  villain ! 
You  are  caught  1  You  are  the  scoundrel  who  robbed  Mr. 
Latimer's  safe.  I've  traced  you,  and  you  are  splendidly 
trapped !  "  I  exclaimed. 

He  made  some  exertions  to  get  from  my  grasp,  but  I. 
held  him  firmly ;  waited  a  moment  or  two  that  the  first 
flush  of  excitement  might  pass  from  him,  and  led  him  to  a 
chair ;  gave  him  his  history  in  brief;  and  in  a  short  manner 
showed  him  how  he  was  caught.  Meanwhile  the  agent,  at 
my  request,  was  searching  and  counting  the  money  in  the 
purse  which  he  picked  up  as  I  knocked  it  out  of  Worden's 
hands.  "  Here's  another  one  hundred  dollar  bill  with  Bor- 
dell's  card  on  it,"  said  he.  (The  card  was  "  Rufus  Bordell, 
Optician,  and  Mathematical  Instrument  Maker,  173  Bow- 
ery, N.  Y.,"  as  my  notes  read.  It  was  not  an  unusual  thing 
in  those  days,  though  I  always  thought  it  a  foolish  one,  for 
men  to  indorse  all  the  new  bills  that  came  into  their  pos- 
session with  their  business  addresses,  as  a  mode  of  adver- 
tisement. Poor  Mr.  Bordell  !  He  was  an  Englishman,  and 
was  making  a  trip  to  England  to  visit  his  relatives  on  board 
the  ill-fated  Pacific  steamer  in  her  last  trip  out,  which  went 
to  sea,  and  was  never  heard  of  after.)  Well,  Worden  saw 


150  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

that  he  was  caught,  and  there  was  no  escape  for  him.  Wo 
found  lie  had  over  three  thousand  dollars  in  money  with 
him,  and  he  agreed  to  go  to  New  York  with  us  and  get 
what  remained  of  the  rest,  which  he  said  was  all  he  had 
taken  except  six  or  eight  hundred  dollars,  and  ho  thought 
he  could  manage  to  raise  that  amount  too,  if  I  would  not 
prosecute  him.  The  vision  of  JState  Prison  was  too  much 
for  his  nerves.  He  wanted  to  go  unmanacled  ;  and  so  I 
insisted  on  the  agent's  accompanying  me  to  help  watch  him.  . 
However,  he  could  never  have  got  away  from  me  alone, 
for  I  should  have  felled  him  at  once  to  the  ground  had  ho 
tried,  and  I  was  sure  he  had  not  been  in  the  business  long 
enough,  or  done  enough  at  it,  to  have  "  pals  "  to  assist  him. 
In  fact,  he  said  he  never  had  any  comrades  in  crime. 

The  agent  arranged  his  affairs ;  sent  word  to  the  New 
York  agent  that  he  was  suddenly  called  to  New  York,  and 
would  see  him  there  the  next  day,  and  we  left  Baltimore 
for  New  York  by  the  next  train.  The  young  man  kept 
his  promise  to  us  ;  not  only  got  the  money  left  out  of  his 
robbery,  but  raised  of  a  "  friend,"  whom  we  all  visited, 
seven  hundred  and  ten  dollars,  which  wo  found  was  the 
deficit ;  gave  up  the  lottery  ticket  to  the  agent  (who 
had  the  honor,  however,  to  pay  him  back  the  sum  he  paid 
for  the  ticket),  and  we  let  him  go. 

I  hardly  know  whether  I  ought  to  state  what  I  am  about 
to  or  not ;  but  it  may  encourage  some  reader  of  this  who 
may  be  inclined  to  a  life  like  that  which  young  "  Worden  " 
was  then  leading,  to  reform.  "  Worden  "  saw  the  situa- 
tion of  things,  thanked  us  for  our  kindness,  and  begged 
me  to  never  mention  his  real  narr.e.  (I  had  not  cornmuni- 
c.itrd  it  to  the  agent  or  to  Mr.  Latimcr,  and  have  never 
since  told  it  to  either  or  to  anybody).  He  promised  to  re- 
form at  once,  and  go  to  work,  however  humble  the  situa- 
tion. He  did  so,  and  in  two  or  three  years  won  his  way 
lurk  into  his  father's  smiles,  conducted  business  in  Now 
York  for  awhile  after  that,  and  is  now  a  prominent  and 
wealthy  man  of  Chicago.  I  met  him  not  over  ten  months 


HOW   DID   HE   GET   IN?  151 

ago  from  this  writing,  and  enjoyed  his  hospitality.  "  You 
saved  me,"  said  he.  And  that  was  all  that  was  said  be- 
tween us  about  the  robbery. 

The  Baltimore  agent  drew  the  prize  for  No.  1710,  and  it 
was*  none  of  the  Lottery  Company's  business  that  he  pock- 
eted it. 

When  I  carried  the  money  back  to  Mr.  Latimer,  he  was 
astonished,  and  insisted  that  I  take  the  reward  of  one  thou- 
sand dollars,  which,  as  he  was  rich,  I  did  accept.  I  never* 
told  him  how  we  let  the  fellow  escape,  but  satisfied  him 
on  that  point. 

"  But,''  said  he,  "  you  haven't  told  me  what  you  learned 
about  how  he  got  into  the  safe." 

"  No,  for  the  scamp  was  in  as  much  doubt  about  it  as 
we ;  he  thought  that  the  lock  turned  easily,  if  it  turned 
at  all.  He  pulled,  and  the  door  came  open,  and  afterwards, 
on  looking  at  the  key  he  tried  it  with,  thought  it  curious 
that  it  could  have  raised  the  spring.  Probably  the  safe 
was  not  locked." 

"  But  how  did  he  get  in,  and  do  it  so  secretly,  my  wife 
and  I  lying  right  there  ?  "  pointing  to  the  adjoining  bed- 
room. 

"  0,  he  says  you  were  both  snoring  away  so  that  no- 
body in  the  House  could  have  heard  him  if  he'd  made  ten 
times  the  noise  he  did." 

"I  —  do  —  not  —  believe  —  it,"  said  Mr.  Latimer,  with 
an  emphatic  drawl,  and  more  seriousness  of  face  than  I 
had  seen  him  exhibit  over  his  loss  even.  "  I  never  caught 
her  snoring  in  my  life.  She  says  I  snore  sometimes.  I'll 
call  her,  and  tell  her  the  story." 

Mrs.  Latimer  came  in ;  the  snoring  matter  was  set- 
tled in  a  joke,  and  I  was  made  to  stay  and  take  a  private 
supper  with  them,  which,  in  due  time,  was  served  in  superb 
order;  and  I  left  that  house  to  go  home  at  last  with  a  firm 
friend  in  Mr.  Latimer,  who  has  never  failed  to  send  me 
business,  when  he  could  command  it,  from  that  day. 

He  is  ignorant  of  the  young  robber's  real  name  to  this 


152  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

day ;  and,  indeed,  said  he  did  not  care  to  know  it ;  when, 
four  years  after  the  occurrence,  as  he  was  one  day 
badgering  me  to  satisfy  his  curiosity  on  that  point,  I  told 
him  the  man  had  reformed,  and  was  made  a  good  citizen 
of,  indirectly  through  the  facts  that  the  safe  was  probably 
imlocked  that  night,  and  that  he  and  his  wife  snored  so 
loudly. 


LEWELLYN  PAYNE  AND  THE  COUNTER- 
FEITERS. 


AN  IDLE  TIME  —  A  CALL  FROM  MT  OLD  "  CHIEF"  —  THE  CASE  IW  HAND 
OUTLINED —  I  DISCOVER  AN  OLD  ENEMY  IN  THB  LIST  OF  COUNTERFEIT- 
ERS, AND  LAY  MY  PLANS  —  TAKE  BOARD  IN  NINETEENTH  STREET,  AND 
OPEN  A  LAW  OFFICE  IN  JAUNCEY  COURT  —  MAKE  THE  ACQUAINTANCE 
OF  MRS.  PAVNE,  LEWELLYN'B  MOTHER,  AND  FINALLY  GET  ACQUAINTED 

WITH    HIM  HE     VISITS    MY    LAW    OFFICE I    AM    INGRATIATED    IN    HIS 

FAVOR  —  I     TRACK    HIM    INTO    MY    ENEMY'S    COMPANY,    AND    FEEL    SURE 

OF     SUCCESS  LEWELLYN     FINALLY     CONFESSES     TO     ME     HIS    TERRIBLE 

SITUATION  —  CERTAIN  PLANS  LAID I  MAKE  "  COLLINS*  "  ACQUAINT- 
ANCE—  VISIT  A  GAMBLING  SALOON  WITH  HIM  —  A  HEAVY  WAGER  — 
FIFTEEN  THOUSAND  DOLLARS  AT  HAZARD,  PAYNE'S  ALL  —  THE  COUN- 
TERFEITING GAMBLERS  CAUGHT  TOGETHER  —  A  SEVERE  STRUGGLE  — 

PAYNE    SAVED    AT    LAST,  AND    HIS    MONEY   TOO A    REFORMED    SON  AND 

A  HAPPY    MOTHER  —  TWO    "  BIRDS  "    SENT   TO   THE   PENITENTllRY. 

THERE  had  been  a  lull  in  business  for  a  time  with  me 
soon  after  I  had  left  an  organized  force  of  private  detec- 
tives, and  with  the  promised  assistance  of  some  friends, 
mercantile  and  otherwise,  whom  I  had  served  more  -or 
less,  under  the  direction  of  the  chief  of  the  corps  to  which 
I  belonged,  had  taken  a  private  office,  and  was  beginning 
to  wish  that  I  was  not  so  much  "  my  oAvn  master,"  and 
had  more  to  do. 

During  those  days  I  tried  to  divert  my  mind  with  much 
reading,  and  one  day,  poring  over  De  Quincey's  "  Opium 
Eater,"  I  was  half  buried  in  oblivion  to  all  particular 
things  around  me,  though  wonderfully  aroused  to  a  sweet 
sensuousness  of  all  things  material,  when  my  old  chief 
entered  my  office.  I  was  not  a  little  surprised  to  see  him, 
for  it  had  been  weeks  since  I  had  met  him,  and  that  casual 

163 


154  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

meeting  was  the  first  time  I  Lad  seen  him  since  my  resig- 
nation from  the  corps. 

"  Good  day,  my  boy,"  said  he,  giving  me  a  hearty  grasp 
of  the  hand.  He  looked  weary  and  worn.  I  thought  he 
looked  vexed,  too,  about  something,  and  I  asked,  "  Well, 
what's  up?  What  ails  you?  Are  you  unwell?"  "No,"' 
said  he,  "  not  unwell ;  in  fact,  never  in  better  health ;  but 
business  annoys  me.  I've  been  on  a  scent  for  some  par- 
ties for  quite  a  while,  and  I  can  get  nobody  to  do  what  I 
want  done.  Report  of  failure  to  find  out  what  1  want  has 
just  been  rendered  an  hour  ago,  and  I  have  come  down 
to  see  if  you  can't  help  me  out." 

"  Tell  me  your  story,"  said  I.  "  But  I  don't  suppose  I 
can  accomplish  anything  for  you  if  Wilson,  Baldwin,  or 
Harry  Hunt"  (detectives  of  rare  ability  on  his  corps) 
•'have  failed." 

•'  They  have,"  said  he,  "  signally ;  but  I  believe  the  mat- 
ter can  be  worked  out  readily,  though  you  will  have  to 
take  your  time  at  it.  The  case  is  this :  There's  a  lot  of 
blacklegs  and  counterfeiters,  some  of  whom  you  know, 
whose  den  I  want  to  find  out.  That's  all.  They  are  pass- 
ing more  or  less  counterfeit  money  these  days.  What  I 
want  is  not  to  detect  any  one  of  these  by  himself,  but  to 
capture  the  whole  of  them  in  their  den — gobble  them 
all  up  at  once,  and  break  up  their  gang;  and  now  1 
think  1  have  a  key  to  their  hiding-place,  which,  if  I 
c;m  get  anybody  to  work  it  well,  will  open  in  upon 
them." 

"  Well,  give  me  the  particulars,  and  your  general  in- 
structions, and  I'll  try  it." 

"  You  know,"  said  he,  "  that  some  of  it  may  be  desper- 
ate work,  and  that's  one  reason  why  I  want  you  —  staady 
hand,  and  cool  head,  and  time  enough,  must  succeed  in  this 
business.  Here  is  a  minute  description  of  five  of  the 
prang.  Look  it  over,"  pulling  from  his  side  pocket  a  pa- 
per. "  There,  you  know  this  first  one,  Harry  Le  Beau. 
We  dealt  with  him.  you  know,  two  years  ago ;  and  the 


A  DISCOVERY.  155 

next  I  guess  you  don't  know.  la  fact,  I  reckon  you  don't 
know  any  of  the  rest." 

1  was  studying  over  the  personal  descriptions  ;  mean- 
while the  chief  went  talking  on,  I  paying  little  heed 
further  to  what  he  was  saying.  Coming  to  the  last  on  the 
list,  "Mont  Collins!"  — ''Mont  Collins?"  — I  don't  know 
the  name,  but  the  description  just  suits  another  person  ; 
rather,  just  suits  the  character  himself,  for  I  knew,  of 
course,  that  "  Collins  ".  was  one  of  any  number  of  aliases. 
"  This  is  a  particular  friend  of  mine,"  said  I.  "  His  name 
used  to  be  Bill  Blanchard,  and — and  —  well,"  without  say- 
ing any  more,  "  I'll  undertake  the  job ;  and,  by  Heavens  ! ?l 
said  I,  "  I'll  succeed,"  for  I  had  been  warming  up  out  of 
my  opium  reverie  from  the  instant  my  eye  fell  upon  the 
description  of  "  Collins,"  with  an  indignation  and  a  hope 
of  revengeful  triumph  over  this  villain,  who  had  now 
taken  a  step  in  counterfeiting,  or  in  passing  counterfeit 
mone}r,  where  I  could,  if  successful,  get  him  confined 
within  the  walls  of  a  prison,  and  pay  him  for  his  vile  ini- 
quities. 

"  You  have  encountered  this  scoundrel  before,  it  seems," 
said  the  chief,  noticing  the  glow  upon  my  face. 

"  No,  not  I ;  but  a  relative  of  mine.  I  can't  tell  you 
the  story  now.  I'll  follow  him  to  the  death.  No  stone 
shall  remain  unmoved  in  this  business." 

"  I  am  glad  you  have  a  peculiar  incentive,  and  I  feel 
that  you  are  sure  to  succeed ;  but  I  have  not  given  you 
the  key  yet.  May  be  it  will  serve  you.  Perhaps  you  can 
get  a  better  one,  and  won't  need  to  use  it,"  said  the  chief. 

"  Give  it  me,"  said  I,  "  by  all  means.  A  straw,  even, 
might  serve  to  point  the  way ;  and  if  the  rest  are  as  des- 
perate and  cunning  as  l  Collins,'  I  shall  need  all  the  help 
and  advice  possible  to  work  up  the  job,"  said  I. 

So  the  chief  went  on  to  say,  "  It  is  very  evident  that 
these  fellows  have  an  important  victim'  in  a  young  man, 
by  the  name  of  Lewellyn  Payne,  from  Kentucky,  who 
came  to  New  York  some  months  ago,  reputed  to  be  very 


156  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

rich,  and  had  always  at  first  about  him  money  enough  ; 
but  he  has  become  reckless.  He's  a  fine-looking  fellow, 
of  good  address,  and  how  he  allowed  such  a  vile  gang  to 
get  hold  of  him,  I  don't  see  "  — 

"  But  1  do,"  said  I,  interposing.  "  Collins  is  as  keen 
and  genteel  a  villain  as  the  city  holds,"  said  I. 

"  May  be,"  said  the  -chief;  "  but  the  rest  of  them  are 
only  cutthroats,  without  a  particle  of  grace  to  save 
them." 

"  But  they  cannot  be  worse  at  heart  than  he,"  I  re- 
sponded. "  He  has  chosen  his  crew  for  his  own  purposes 
—  fit  instruments  for  his  style  of  villany." 

"  Well,  you  think  you  know  him.  I  hope  you  do,  and 
can  manage  him ;  but  I'll  tell  you  about  this  Payne.  They 
have  drained  his  purse,  I  think ;  in  fact,  I've  had  him 
watched,  and  have  found  out  that  he  is  greatly  in  their 
debt.  They  hold  his  notes,  and  he  is  about  to  sell  prop- 
erty in  Kentucky  to  meet  them.  At  least  this  is  my 
translation  of  Hunt's  report  from  him.  Hunt  "  cultivat- 
ed "  him  for  a  while,  but  we  couldn't  find  out  anything 
from  him  in  regard  to  the  gang's  rendezvous." 

"Well,  what  am  I  to  do?  Where  does  he  live,  this 
Payne  ?  " 

"  In  West  19th  Street,  No.  — ,  corner  Sixth  Avenue. 
He  and  his  mother  board  there." 

"  O,  ho,"  said  I ;  "  his  mother  !  Does  she  know  any- 
thing about  her  son's  dissipations  ?  " 

"  Yes ;  it  was  she  who  came  to  me  first  about  him,  — 
says  her  heart  is  broken,  and  that  something  must  be 
done  to  save  her  son.  She  can  learn  but  little  from  him  ; 
but  says  he's  away  a  great  deal  all  night,  and  sleeps 
mostly  during  the  day ;  that  she  fears  he's  gambled  away 
most  of  his  property,  etc." 

"  Then  she  can  be  approached  upon  the  subject.  Well, 
I  see  the  way  clear.  I  must  make  his  acquaintance  with- 
out his  knowing  why.  I  may  make  such  use  of  your 
name  as  I  please?" 


PLAYING  THE  LAWYER.  157 

«  Certainly." 

Before  night  that  day  1  was  fortunate  enough  to  secure 
board  at  the  house  in  19th  Street,  though  I  did  have  to 
accept  a  room  a  little  farther  up  toward  the  sky  than  I 
desired,  with  the  assurance  that  I  should  have  the  first 
vacant  room  below.  My  first  business  was  to  effect  a 
meeting  with  the  lady,  Mrs.  Payne,  which  I  found  but 
little  difficulty  in  doing.  The  poor  woman,  who  was  a 
model  of  elegance  and  matronly  character,  was  greatly 
moved  when  she  came  to  tell  me  of  her  son's  wanderings 
from  the  strict  path  of  morality  in  which  she  had  tried  to- 
rear  him.  Young  Payne's  father  had  died  some  twelve 
years  before,  and  she  had  taken  her  son  Lewellyn  to 
Europe  to  finish  his  education.  Being  of  Scotch  origin 
herself,  and  most  of  her  relations  residing  in  and  about 
Edinboro',  she  had  taken  him  to  the  university  there, 
whence,  after  leaving  college,  she  went  to  the  Continent 
with  him.  Finally,  spending  a  season  at  Baden  Baden, 
young  Payne  caught  there  the  fashionable  mania  for  gam- 
bling, which  waa  proving  his  ruin.  She  was  ready  to 
spend  liberally  of  her  means  in  order  to  reform  him,  and 
wished  me  to  spare  no  expense  necessary  in  the  course 
which  I  pointed  out  to  her.  I  found  it  necessary  to  take 
an  office  or  desk  as  a  lawyer  in  Jauncey  Court,  out  of 
Wall  Street,  and  had  some  cards  struck  off,  announcing 
myself  as  an  attorney  at  law.  Three  or  four  days  passed 
before  I  thought  best  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  the 
young  man,  the  mother  having  stated  to  me,  meanwhile,  a 
legal  matter  of  hers  in  Kentucky,  on  which  1  had  taken 
advice,  so  as  to  be  able  to  talk  learnedly  to  the  son. 

All  being  arranged,  the  mother  told  the  son  that  she 
f..uiid  they  had  a  lawyer  in  the  house,  and  had  thought 
best  to  consult  him  regarding  the  matter  in  Kentucky,  and 
was  pleased  with  his  advice,  but  would  like  him  (young 
Payne)  to  talk  with  the  lawyer  also.  Through  this  means 
I  made  the  acquaintance  of  young  Payne  next  day,  and 
invited  him  down  to  my  office.  He  said  he  should  have 
10  7 


158  KNOTS    UNTIED. 

occasion  to  go  into  Wall  Street  that  very  day,  and  would 
call  about  three  P.  M.  Of  course  I  was  there,  received 
him,  spoke  of  the  library,  which  was  quite  large,  as  mine, 
and  played  the  lawyer  to  the  best  of  my  abilities.  We 
went  out  to  a  restaurant  together,  and  I  allowed  myself 
to  accept  his  treat  to  a  little  wine ;  and,  in  short,  before 
reaching  home  that  evening,  for  we  went  up  town  to- 
gether, I  felt  very  certain  that  1  had  properly  impressed 
young  Payne  with  my  consequence,  and  with  the  notiun, 
too,  that  I  was  no  "  blue-skin,"  but  ready  always  for  a  lit- 
tle "fun." 

Mrs.  Payne  looked  a  degree  or  two  improved  that  even- 
ing when  she  saw  how  swimmingly  her  son  and  I  were 
getting  on  in  our  acquaintance. 

After  supper,  young  Payne  said  he  had  an  engage- 
ment out,  and  would  bid  me  good  evening.  But  I  said, 
•"  I  am  going  out  too  ;  perhaps  our  paths  may  lie  along  to- 
gether for  a  while.  I  am  going  down  town." 

"  So  am  I,"  said  he,  "  and  I  should  be  pleased  with  your 
•company  as  far  as  you  may  go." 

I  left  the  house  with  him,  and  we  proceeded  to  Broad- 
way, and  turned  down,  talking  over  many  things,  and 
managing  to  agree  pretty  well  upon  them  all.  At  la^t, 
^is  we  neared  8th  Street,  I  thought  I  saw  that  young 
Payne  was  a  little  uneasy,  as  if  wishing  to  shake  *ne  oft'; 
and  I  said  to  him,  "  Well,  good  evening,  Mr.  Payne,"  offer- 
ing him  my  hand.  "My  course  leads  this  way,"  pointing 
to  the  left,  and  turning  in  that  direction.  "  I  suppose  you 
keep  down  farther." 

"  Yes."  said  he,  "  I  am  going  on  farther,"  and  bowing 
me  an  "  adieu,  for  the  while,"  he  passed  on,  and  I  kept  a 
;good  look  out  for  him,  for  I  '^scented  "  that  he  expected  to 
meet  somebody  not  far  from  that  point.  Dropping  into  a 
.saloon  near  by,  where  a  friend  of  mine  was  engaged,  I  left 
my  "  stove-pipe  "  hat,  and  pulled  from  my  pocket  a  thin 
"  slouched  "  hat,  which  I  carried  for  occasion,  and  taking 
the  opposite  side  of  the  street  from  Payne,  kept  him  in 


MAN  —  CRIME  —  CIRCUMSTANCES.  159 

sig'it  till  lie  passed  into  the  New  York  Hotel,  when  I 
crossed  over,  and  entered.  I  had  hardly  done  so  before 
he,  reluming  from  the  back  portion  of  the  hall  in  company 
with  another,  passed  by  me.  His  companion  was  evidently 
telling  him  a  funny  story,  for  he  laughed  quite  loudly,  and 
was  hitting  Payne,  as  if  in  glee,  upon  his  shoulder.  I 
knew  my  man,  both  by  his  voice  and  i'ace,  which  was  partly 
concealed  by  the  manner  in  which  he,  at  this  moment,  had 
fixed  his  hat  upon  his  head.  He  was  unmistakably 
Blanchard,  alias  "  Collins/'  and  my  blood  was  up.  Blan- 
chard,  the  villain,  had  ruined  the  husband  of  my  cousin 

Elizabeth .     4<  Bettie,"  as  we  familiarly  called  her,  was 

one  of  the  sweetest  women  I  ever  saw,  —  my  most  cher- 
ished cousin,  of  whom  I  was  proud  in  every  sense,  —  and 
the  griefs  which  bore  her  down,  in  the  ruin  of  her  hus- 
band, pierced  my  heart,  and  I  resolved  to  be  avenged,  if 
possible,  upon  this  villain  Blanchard,  who  had  worked  her 
husband's  downfall,  and  robbed  him  of  every  dollar.  The 
husband  had  been  at  one  time  in  the  enjoyment  of  a  lucra- 
tive trade,  as  a  merchant  of  woollen  goods,  and  had  a  fine 
standing  with  some  of  the  best  manufacturers  in  Rhode 
Island  and  elsewhere,  and  was  on  what  seemed  the  sure 
road  to  a  great  fortune,  when  he  unluckily  fell  into  the 
clutches  of  Blanchard.  Indeed,  I  too  had  suffered  by 
Blanchard,  to  no  small  extent  for  me,  having  been  in- 
dorser  of  some  of  my  cousin's  paper,  which  went  to  pro- 
test, and  which  I  had  at  last  to  pay.  I  do  not  allow  my- 
self to  cherish  enmity  against  my  fellow-man.  The  detec- 
tive soon  learns  to  not  be  surprised  at  finding  the  man  of 
the  best  reputation  frequently  involved  in  crime,  and  he 
comes  to  look  with  charity  upon  the  faults,  and  even  the 
crimes,  of  his  fellow-men.  Comparatively,  men  do  not,  in 
society,  differ  at  heart  so  greatly  as  the  uninitiated  might 
imagine.  But  few  men  are  proof  against  the  wiles  of 
'•  circumstances."  No  man  can  really  tell  what  he  would 
have  done,  or  would  not  have  done,  had  he  been  placed  in 
these  or  those  circumstances  by  which  some  other  man 


160  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

has  been  led  on  to  a  career  of  crime,  or  to  some  dark 
deed.  But  I  could  never  wholly  suppress  my  longing  for 
vengeance  whenever  Blanchard  came  into  my  mind,  and 
on  this  occasion  my  temper  was  quite  as  intense  as  I  could 
well  control. 

I  turned  when  Payne  and  his  friend  had  passed  a  proper 
distance  on,  and  taking  the  sidewalk,  followed  them  near 
to  a  house  in  Houston  Street,  which  I  saw  them  enter.  I 
did  not  know  the  character  of  the  house  then,  but  was 
satisfied  that  it  was  a  "  hell  "  of  some  sort  —  a  genteel  one, 
for  its  outward  appearances  indicated  as  much  ;  but  I  made 
myself  acquainted  with  the  probable  character  of  the  place 
before  I  returned  to  my  boarding-house  that  night. 

The  next  day  Payne  was  not  up  till  two  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon,  and  I  feigned  illness  enough  to  delay  me  at 
home  that  day,  in  order  to  make  further  study  of  him. 
AVhen  he  came  into  the  general  parlor,  I  saw  that  there  was 
a  peculiar  haggardness  about  his  countenance,  not  such  as 
over-drinking  or  ordinary  mere  dissipation  gives.  To  rne 
it  was  a  tell-tale  haggardness,  and  I  felt  I  knew  full  well 
that  he  was  on  the  last  plank,  and  just  about  to  be  sub- 
merged beneath  the  waves  of  irretrievable  ruin.  So  he 
looked,  so  he  felt,  too,  of  course.  I  entered  into  conver- 
sation with  him,  drew  out  some  of  his  experiences  in  New 
York,  and  gradually  led  him  on  to  the  disclosure  of  some 
pretty  serious  confessions.  At  last  he  told  me  that  he  had 
run  a  wild  career,  but  had  made  up  his  mind  to  reform, 
and  find  some  useful  employment.  "But,"  said  he,  "  I've 
promised  myself  to  do  so  a  thousand  times  before,  and 
have  failed  as  often  to  make  a  beginning." 

"  I  know  yonr  case,"  said  I.  "  I've  known  a  great  many 
such.  There's  always  ground  for  hope,  I  assure  you,  so 
long  as  the  desire  to  escape  exists.  But  each  case  has  its 
peculiarities.  One  case  is  never  an  exact  representation 
of  another,  of  course." 

W<-  carried  on  the  conversation  fora  while  longer,  till 
we  came  to  a  point  where  Mr.  Payne,  in  giving  me  a 


GETTING  INTO  PAYNE'S   HEART.  1C1 

description  of  some  friends  whom  he  had  made  since  he 
came  to  New  York,  spoke  of  his  friend  "  Collins  "  as  a  very 
"  brilliant,  dashing  fellow,"  who  was  a  nondescript  for 
him,  otherwise,  in  character.  I  was,  of  course,  more  inter- 
ested at  this  point  than  at  any  other,  which  must  have 
been  manifest  at  once  to  young  Payne.  He  told  me  of 
some  of  his  and  Collins'  adventures.  In  all  these  I  could 
clearly  see  the  workings  of  the  villain  Blanchard,  and  I 
was  several  times  on  the  point  of  uttering  my  full  views 
to  Mr.  Payne,  but  I  thought  it  an  hour  too  early  in  our 
acquaintance  to  do  so,  and  so  delayed  to  do  it. 

Another  day  came.  I  was  out  all  day  away  from  the 
house,  but  not  idle,  for  I  managed  to  learn  more  of  "  Col- 
lins' "  or  Blanchard's  proceedings  for  the  last  few  month** 
before,  of  his  places  of  resort,  etc. ;  but  when  I  returned 
at  evening,  before  Mr.  Payne's  usual  hour  for  going  abroad, 
1  found  him  in  great  dejection ;  and  having  opportunity  to 
converse  with  him,  approached  him,  and  was  soon  invited 
to  his  room.  It  was  not  long  before  our  conversation  took 
such  shape  that  I  was  able  to  breathe  to  him  some  of  my 
suspicions.  Payne  listened  with  surprise ;  but  I  drew 
Blanchard's  modes  of  proceeding,  his  general  character, 
etc.,  so  accurately,  that  Payne  became  more  than  half 
convinced  that  "  Collins  "  and  Blanchard  were  one.  In 
short,  I  got  down  into  Payne's  heart  before  our  conversa- 
tion concluded  that  evening.  It  was  necessary  for  him  to 
go  forth  again  that  night,  or,  I  think,  he  would  have  held 
me  in  his  room  all  night,  reciting  his  adventures  and  run- 
ning over  his  mistakes.  I  saw  that  he  was  utterly  ruined, 
beyond  all  hope,  unless  I  could  manage  to  get  out  of  the 
hands  of  his  captors  a  large  number  of  collaterals,  which 
he  had  for  the  space  of  three  months  past  left  in  their  hands, 
as  security  for  promissory  notes  to  a  large  amount  whicV 
he  had  given  them,  and  to  pay  which  he  was  looking  to 
the  snle  of  some  property  in  Kentucky,  and  for  some  divi- 
dends on  stock  in  a  manufactory  in  Cincinnati,  which,  how- 
ever, was  itself  pledged.  These  were  debts  of  honor,  as 


•162  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

lie,  up  to  that  moment,  had  regarded  them,  and  must  be 
j>;iid,  no  matter  if  paying  them  more  than  bankrupted  him. 
Indeed,  he  had  played  and  lost  far  beyond  the  sum  of  his 
actual  property,  so  desperate  had  ho  become  in  the  mat- 
ter; and  the  gamblers,  his  elegant  friends,  were  willing 
to  show  their  gentlemanly  confidence  in  him,  and  trusted 
him  more,  —  the  well-bred  scoundrels.  But  I  pointed  out 
to  him  the  fact  that  he  had  (which  was  evident  enough  to 
me)  been  victimized  by  villains  who  never  play  an  honor- 
able game  of  hazard ;  indeed,  who  never  play  a  game  of 
hazard  at  all,  since  all  is  in  their  hands  and  under  their 
perfect  control.  When  he  came  to  see  this,  and  reflect 
upon  each  step,  and  saw  how  the  thing  had  been  done,  and 
also  that,  as  his  memory,  now  excited,  called  all  vividly  be- 
fore him,  when  he  had  lost  heavily  with  the  gang  they  had, 
without  doubt,  in  every  instance  played  a  false  game,  the 
dark  shades  deepened  in  his  face. 

Mr.  Payne  became  at  first  very  serious,  but  at  the  close 
of  our  conversation  I  saw  that  his  mind  had  become  quite 
calm :  he  was  very  deliberate.  The  muscles  about  his 
mouth  assumed  a  firmer  expression.  I  could  easily  see 
that  he  was  meditating  some  way  of  revenge  on  the  scoun- 
drels who  would  have  gladly  ruined  him  in  all  respects,  as 
they  had  already  done  in  some.  Finally  he  said  to  me, 
"  You  seem  to  understand  all  about  these  villains.  How 
came  you  to  know  them  so  well  ?  Have  you  ever  been 
victimized  by  them  ?  " 

"  No,  not  victimized ;  but  I  came  to  learn  these  charac- 
ters through  my  profession.  Professional  men  are  com- 
pelled to  know  more  or  less  of  them,  and  it  has  been  my  lot 
to  be  greatly  interested ;  in  fact,  somewhat  involved  in  a 
matter  in  which  Blanchard,  or,  as  you  know  him, '  Collins,' 
was  the  principal  actor ;  and  Pll  say  to  you  here,  that 
it  would  give  me  the  keenest  pleasure  to  give  you  any  aid 
in  my  power  as  against  that  wretch." 

Air.  Payne's  time  for  going  out  that  evening  had  come, 
and  I  left  the  house  at  the  saino  time  with  him,  hoping 


IN   THE   BEER   GARDEN.  165 

that  he  would  do  something,  or  that  something  would  oc- 
cur on  my  walk  with  him,  to  further  my  projects.  But 
we  parted  that  evening  with  nothing  done.  But  next  day 
Payne  came  to  me  at  my  office  in  Wall  Street  about  twelve 
o'clock.  He  was  uneasy,  and  did  not  wish  to  sit  down  to 
talk,  and  asked  me  if  I  would  walk  with  him.  We  sallied 
out  up  to  Broadway,  and  along  it ;  got  to  Courtlandt  Street, 
when  he  said,  "  Somehow  I  feel  a  great  inclination  to  go 
down  to  the  water.  Suppose  we  go  over  in  the  ferry  to 
Jersey  City." 

Of  course  I  was  ready  to  humor  him,  for  I  well  knew 
the  agitated  state  of  his  mind ;  and  down  to  the  dock  and 
over  the  river  we  went,  and  arriving  in  Jersey  City, 
Payne  having  no  special  point  of  destination,  we  wandered 
the  streets  and  talked.  He  told  me  his  whole  story  over, 
as  of  the  night  before,  and  added  to  it  many  touching  inci- 
dents. "  Help  me  now,  I  beg  you,  if  you  can."  I  asked  him 
if  this  gang  dealt  in  counterfeit  money  at  all,  and  found  that 
he  knew  nothing  about  it.  This  was  a  relief,  in  one  sense,  to 
me,  and  a  surprise  in  another;  and  I  thought,  "  Perhaps  I 
may  be  mistaken  after  all."  But  we  planned,  as  the  result 
of  our  day's  conversation,  that,  as  a  first  step,  he  should 
take  "  Collins  "  that  evening  into  the  "  Atlantic  Beer  Gar- 
den," in  the  Bowery,  to  take  beer  (of  which  he  said  Collins 
was  very  fond,  not  drinking  anything  else  intoxicating),  to 
treat  him,  and  I  should  come  in  carelessly,  but  unexpected- 
ly, upon  him.  And  he  should  present  me  at  once  to 
"  Collins  "  as  Mr.  "  Wilson,"  the  name  I  had  assumed  on 
my  legal  card,  but  which  I  did  not  explain  the  reason  for  at 
that  time  to  Mr.  Payne. 

That  night  I  came  upon  the  twain  at  the  place  proposed, 
where  they  were  sitting  at  a  table  over  pots  of  beer,  and 
smoking,  when  I,  darting  in,  called  for  a  pot  of  beer ;  and 
seeing  Payne,  pushed  up  to  his  table,  extending  my  hand. 
"  Ah,  here,  eh  ?  Mr.  Payne ;  very  glad  to  meet  you  ?  " 
"  Take  a  seat  with  us,"  said  he.  "  This  is  my  friend, 
Collins,  Mr.  Wilson^' 


166  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

I  looked  into  "  Collins' "  eyes ;  gave  him  a  wink,  as  much 
as  to  say,  "  Mr.  Payne  thinks  my  name  is  Wilson ;  you 
know  better ;  keep  still."  Of  course  "  Collins  "  was  as  anx- 
ious that  I  should  not  call  him  Blanchard,  as  I  was  that  he 
should  address  me  as  Wilson.  "  And,"  he  said,  "  Mr.  Wil- 
son —  I  am  glad  to  make  your  acquaintance,  Mr.  Wilson. 
Let's  fill  up,  Mr.  Payne,"  for  their  mugs  were  dry,  "  and 
invite  Mr.  Wilson  to  take  what  he  likes  with  us."  "  Thank 
you,  gentlemen,  but  here  comes  my  beer.  Pll  wait  for 
you  to  fill  up  again."  I  put  u  Collins"  quite  at  ease,  and 
we  drank,  and  told  stories,  and  sang  a  song  or  two.  So 
well  did  Collins  and  I  disguise  the  fact  that  we  had  ever 
heard  of  each  other  that  Payne,  as  he  afterwards  told  me, 
made  up  his  mind  soon  that  I  had  been  utterly  mistaken 
in  the  man. 

We  had  nearly  finished  our  cups  at  the  table,  when 
Payne,  spying  a  southern  friend  coming  into  the  saloon, 
with  a  number  of  others,  asked  to  be  excused  for  a  moment, 
and  left  us. 

"  The  devil ! "  said  Blanchard ;  "  how  did  you  come  to 
know  Payne  ?  " 

"  O,  he  is  one  of  the  acquaintances  one  picks  up  in  the 
city,  he  hardly  knows  how." 

"  Yes,  yes ;  but  as  I  happened,  by  the  mistake  of  a  par- 
tial acquaintance,  to  be  introduced  to  him  as  *  Collins/  1 
have  let  it  go  so.  I  hope  you'll  be  as  careful  the  rest  of 
the  evening  to  not  call  me  Blanchard,  as  you  have." 

"  0,  we  are  in  the  same  boat, '  Collins,'  you  see  !  Ho 
calls  me  '  Wilson,'  and  I  let  it  go  at  that." 

"  But,"  said  Blanchard,  "  J  must  say,  '  Wilson,'  you  are 
very  complaisant,  and  I  hardly  thought  you  would  speak 
to  me  at  all." 

"  O,  well,  Blanchard,  we  grow  wiser  as  we  grow  older. 
We  don't  see  things,  generally,  in  the  same  light  we  used 
to." 

"True,"  said  he;  "and  I  am  glad  to  find  you  not 
unkindly  disposed,"  —  and  I  doubt  not  that  he  was,  for  ho 


IN   THE   COUNTERFEITERS'  DEN.  167 

well  knew  how  I  loved  my  cousin,  and  that  I  knew  he  was 
the  cause  of  her  husband's  downfall,  and  her  greatest 
griefs. 

"  What  aro  you  doing  these  days?  "  asked  B. 

"  I've  turned  lawyer,"  said  I,  "  and  have  an  office  on 
Wall  Street.  Here's  my  card.  Don't  like  my  profession 
over  much,  and  so  find  time  to  speculate  more  or  less." 
(Blanchard  had  never  known  that  I  had  become  a  detec- 
tive, fortunately.  Though  living  in  the  same  city^we  had 
been,  practically,  as  wide  apart  as  the  poles.) 

"  What  are  you  doing  ?  "  I  asked  in  turn. 

"  Well,  I  am  speculating,  too,  a  little,"  said  he,  with  a 
half-inquiring  wink  in  his  eyes. 

"  I  see  you  misinterpret  me  a  little,"  said  I.  "  Not  so 
much  either,"  I  continued,  "  for  I  speculate  in  Wall  Street 
some,  and  elsewhere  some." 

"  The  fact  is,"  said  '  Collins/  "  I  am  getting  to  be  very 
much  attracted  by  sundry  speculations,  though  I  lose 
money  as  fast  as  I  make  it.  I  was  on  my  way  to-night  on 
a  little  speculation.  Perhaps  you'd  like  to  go  along."  In 
paying  for  my  beer  I  had  purposely  made  display  of  all 
the  money  I  had,  —  quite  a  pile,  —  and  doubtles's  Collins' 
gambling  avarice  was  a  little  whetted,  or  he  might  not 
have  invited  me  along. 

Payne  returned  to  us ;  and  Collins  telling  him  that  he 
had  invited  me  to  accompany  them  "  for  a  little  fun  to- 
night," we  sallied  forth,  and  were  not  long  in  crossing 
Broadway,  and  finding  ourselves  in  a  suite  of  rooms,  which, 
as  soon  as  I  set  my  eyes  on  them,  I  understood  as  one  of 
the  worst  of  the  second-class  of  gambling  hells  in  the  city. 

Roulette,  dice,  and  the  latter  loaded,  and  every  other 
appurtenance  of  such  a  place,  as  well  as  cards  and  a  faro 
bank,  were  there.  The  whole  air  of  the  place,  the  men  at 
play  and  about  the  boards,  were  assurance  to  me  that  I 
was  on  the  right  track  of  the  counterfeiters ;  but  I  felt  at 
once  that  the  game  I  had  to  play  was  a  desperate  one  ;  that 
these  fellows  were  the  worst  sort  of  cutthroats. 

7* 


168  KNOTS    UNTIED. 

We  botli  played  a  little,  Payne  and  I ;  but  Collins  played 
not  at  all  that  night,  except  the  part  of  a  particular  "  friend  " 
to  Payne  in  various  ways.  I  lost  considerable,  Payne  lost 
more,  and  his  note  was  received  on  demand ;  but  still  with 
the  understanding  that  he  was  not  to  be  asked  to  cash  it 
till  his  Kentucky  remittance  came  on.  It  was  a  part  of  my 
plan  to  play  and  lose  a  little  that  night,  to  furnish  occasion 
to  come  again  ;  and  when  we  parted  to  go  home,  the  "  gen- 
tleman "  of  the  establishment,  to  whom  Collins  had  intro- 
duced me  as  Wilson,  said,  "  Mr.  Wilson,  now  you've  learned 
the  way,  drop  in  occasionally.  Poor  luck  don't  run  al- 
ways." 

"  Ha,  ha ! "  said  I,  "  gentlemen,"  taking  the  matter  good- 
humoredly.  "  Pm  not  feeling  very  well  to-night ;  but  you 
can  expect  me  around  some  time  to  break  your  bank  when 
1  am  in  good  spirits." 

'•'  That's  right,  come  along  any  time.  We  like  bold  play- 
ers, if  they  do  clean  us  out  sometimes ;  nothing  like 
spirit,"  —  and  we  bowed  ourselves  out. 

It  was  arranged  by  me  and  Payne,  as  we  betook  our- 
selves home,  that  he  should  continue  to  go  there  and  play 
a  little  every  night  till  his  money  came ;  that  then  he 
should  offer  to  play  all  his  pile  against  his  indebtedness  to 
the  concern,  his  notes  of  hand,  and  all  the  collaterals  he 
had  pledged.  I  knew  the  gamblers  would  catch  at  that, 
and  count  him  a  bigger  fool  than  ever.  I  was  to  be  there, 
and  play  too.  Payne  continued  to  visit  the  place,  played 
less  and  less  each  night,  and  at  last  declared  to  them  that 
ho  would  not  be  in  again  till  his  money  came.  "  And," 
said  he  ''  I'm  going  to  take  Wilson  in,  as  my  partner  —  he 
has  a  pile."  Meanwhile  I  reported  to  my  old  chief,  and 
had  all  things  arranged  for  a  descent  upon  the  place  if  I 
should  be  able  to  work  the  matter  up  to  the  proper  point 
by  the  time  Payne's  money  came.  The  money  came. 
Payne's  fifteen  thousand  dollars,  in  good  money,  I  knew 
would  be  a  temptation  to  the  villains,  although  his  indebt- 
edness to  them  had  increased  to  over  twenty-five  thousand 


THE  LAST  STAKES  ARRANGED.         1G9 

dollars,  and  we  went  to  the  den ;  I  having  my  force  of 
policemen  in  training,  and  ready  for  my  call.  It  was  a 
wet  night.  There  was  quite  a  number  of  visitors  in 
early  in  the  evening;  but  they  straggled  homo,  as  the 
rain  increased,  some  not  having  umbrellas  with  them,  and 
for  various  reasons,  and  we  were  left,  eventually,  almost 
alone  with  the  regular  keepers  of  the  place ;  and  Payne 
was  asked  if  his  money  had  come?  "Yes,  gentlemen, 
fifteen  thousand  dollars  of  it;  all  I  shall  get  for  more  than 
a  year  to  come,  and  I'm  going  to  hazard  it  all  against  my 
notes  and  the  collaterals  you  hold." 

"  All  right,"  said  the  leading  genius  of  the  place.  "  All 
right,"  said  "  Collins,"  aloud ;  but  he  stepped  up  to  Payne, 
and  kindly  whispered  in  his  ear,  ;<  But  would  you  do  it?  I 
wouldn't  hazard  it  now.  Play  half  for  half,  say ;  for  if 
you  should  lose  all,  you  know  —  well,  do  as  you  like." 

"Yes,  I  will  do  as  I  like  —  I'll  play  all."  There  was  a 
smile  of  fiendish  triumph  then  on  Collins'  face,  which  Payne 
did  not  see,  but  /did,  and  I  couldn't  help  feeling  a  pulse 
of  vengeance  beating  in  my  heart  as  I  contemplated  how 
soon  the  scoundrel's  face  might  change  its  expression. 
Payne's  money  was  put  up ;  one  game  was  to  decide  the 
whole.  His  notes  were  put  up  on  the  table,  by  the  other 
side,  to  the  amount  of  fifteen  thousand  dollars. 

"  But  where  are  the  rest?"  said  he.  "  No  trifling  ;  and 
where  are  the  collaterals  ?  "  and  there  was  bickering  about 
the  understanding,  and  I  was  appealed  to.  "  I  did  not  wish 
to  interfere,"  I  said  ;  but  that  "  I  understood  it  was  to  be 
a  clean  sweep.  But  as  there  was  a  misunderstanding, 
perhaps  'twasn't  best  to  play  at  all  to-night ;  wait  for 
another  occasion,  and  Payne  take  his  money  and  go." 

The  gamblers  saw  it  was  of  no  use  to  pretend  further 
misunderstanding,  and  that  Payne's  money  was  likely  to  be 
more  readily  "  gobbled  up  "  then  than  if  they  wer'e  to 
wait,  and  consented  to  put  all  on  the  table,  though  as  the 
collaterals  were  packed  away  and  locked  in  the  safe,  they 
proposed  to  put  money  up  instead  —  ten  thousand  dollars. 


170  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

"  No,  no,"  said  Payne,  "  1  want  to  sec  the  whole  on  the 
table.  I  want  to  look  at  'era  once  more.  There's  my 
Harry  Clay  watch  "  (a  very  fine  five  hundred  dollar  watch) ; 
"I  want  to  look  her  in  the  face  again  —  ptay  better,  I  tell 
you,  gentlemen,  in  her  smiles ;  "  and  so  he  went  on.  I  was 
at  the  instant  disposed  to  favor  him  ;  but  on  second  thought 
I  suspected  that  that  money  would  be  mostly,  if  not  wholly 
counterfeit,  and  I  saw  if  it  was,  how  I  would  trap  the 
scoundrels,  and  save  Payne's  fifteen  thousand  too,  as  well 
as  get  up  his  notes  and  all  his  collaterals  ;  and  I  interposed. 
'•  No  need,  Mr.  Payne,  of  troubling  to  get  out  the  collater- 
als. The  money  at  hand's  just  as  good,  and  if  you  win  you 
can  buy  back  the  collaterals." 

"  Yes,  yes,  that's  it,"  said  Collins,  eager  now  to  see  the 
foolish  Payne  slaughtered.  The  money  was  produced. 
"  Here,  count  it  if  you  please,  Mr.  Wilson,"  said  Payne, 
as  the  first  bundle  of  a  thousand  dollars  was  thrown  upon 
the  table. 

I  caught  it  up  carelessly,  and  ran  it  over  rapidly.  "  One 
thousand,"  said  I,  all  right ;  and  so  with  the  next,  and  the 
next,  till  the  fifth  had  been  counted,  when  I  said,  "  Mr. 
Payne,  there's  no  use  counting  the  rest;  1  guarantee  it  all 
right"  It  is  not  easy  to  deceive  me  with  a  counterfeit 
bill  at  any  time  ;  but  that  night,  alert  and  watchful,  I  could 
have  sworn  that  more  than  nine  tenths  of  the  money  I 
counted  was  counterfeit.  The  play  came.  I  declined 
to  join  as  "  partner  "  of  Payne,  as  he  had  called  me.  He 
played  tremblingly.  I  began  to  fear  that  he  would  not 
hold  out  till  the  proper  time  for  me  to  expect  my  men  ;  but 
he  did,  and  just  as  the  game  was  about  concluding,  disas- 
trously to  him,  there  came  a  ring  at  the  door-bell.  The 
servant  hurried  down,  and  the  excited  gamblers  bade 
Payne  "  play,  play."  Up  came  a  dandy-looking  chap,  ap- 
parently iLtoxicated.  He  was  my  man.  He  blundered 
around,  took  a  little  wine  from  the  side-board,  and  said 
maudlin  things;  staggered  on  to  the  board,  made  the  gam- 
blers angry,  one  of  whom  drew  a  light  cane  over  him.  I 


A  PROFITABLE   SEIZURE.  17-. 

intorposed,  took  his  part,  said  that  they  should  excuse 
him ;  if  he  was  a  fool,  he  was  drunk;  should  be  pardoned 
if  he  asked  pardon ;  and,  taking  advantage  of  the  black 
boy's  absence  in  the  exterior  room,  said,  "  I'll  show  him 
down,  and  get  him  out  of  the  way."  "  Wilson,  you  are 
always  so  polite  and  obliging,"  said  Blanchard,  facetiously, 
as  I  led  out  the  stranger,  who  was  very  loath  to  go,  and 
needed  some  encouragement. 

"  Just  so,"  said  I.  "  Don't  you  think  I'd  make  an  excel- 
lent waiter  here?" 

"  Yes,  we  must  employ  you.  What  do  you  want  by  the 
month  ?  " 

"  Talk  about  that  when  I  come  up,"  said  I. 

We  went  down  the  stairs  —  two  flights  —  but  to  return. 
I  opened  the  door,  the  "  stranger  "  gave  the  signal  he  haJ 
arranged  with  the  rest  of  the  men,  and  eight  stalwart,  well- 
armed  policemen  were  in:  the  house,  and  silently  on  their 
way  up  those  stairs;  the  stranger  fighting  me,  and  pulling 
me  along  up,  making  some  noise,  and  more  drunk  than  ever. 
"  Our  friend  won't  go  out,"  said  I :  "  insists  on  staying." 

<;  D — n  him  !  Til  put  him  out,"  said  one.  "  No  you  won't," 
said  the  stranger,  drawing  a  pistol,  and  calling  out  to  our 
followers,  who  were  just  at  our  heels,  "  Come  on,  boys  !" 
and  there  was  a  rush  into  that  room  which  startled  every 
gambler  to  his  feet,  only  to  be  throttled  by  a  policeman. 
There  were  six  of  the  villains,  including  Collins,  and  the 
policemen  had  no  little  trouble  to  silence  them.  The 
drunken  stranger  immediately  seized  all  the  money  on 
the  table,  notes  and  all,  and  ordered  the  gamblers  manacled 
on  the  spot,  which  was  done.  Payne  then  told  them  his 
story  (as  I  narrated  before  only  in  short),  asked  to  have 
Lis  collaterals  delivered  up.  In  short,  the  gamblers  were 
ready  for  anything.  The  counterfeit  money  was  in  our 
hands,  and  the  evidence  complete.  Payne  got  all  his  notes 
back,  which  were  at  once  put  in  the  grate  and  burned,  and 
all  his  collaterals,  his  fifteen  thousand  dollars  of  money,  and 
was  satisfied.  But  I  was  not ;  ancl  a  compromise  was  made 


174  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

that  on  tho  delivering  up  of  all  the  counterfeit  money  they 
had  about  them  the  gang  should  give  up  the  rooms  and 
disperse,  all  but  two  of  them,  one  of  whom  was  iuy  man 
Blanc-hard,  and  another  desperate  scamp  whom  the  police 
wanted  to  answer  to  a  charge  of  burglary  in  Philadelphia. 
The  safe  was  searched;  all  its  counterfeit  money  given 
up,  and  all  the  collaterals,  with  the  names  of  parties  who 
had  pledged  them  for  gambling  debts,  were  delivered  into 
the  police's  hands.  The  rest  were  then  allowed  to  escape  ; 
but  Blanchard,  and  Johnson  (the  Philadelphia  burglar), 
were  ironed  and  taken  to  the  tombs. 

"  Blanchard  "  was  tried  before  the  United  States  Court 
in  due  time,  but  under  another  name,  which,  unfortunately 
for  his  respectable  relatives,  became  known  as  his  proper 
one  before  tho  trial  came  on,  and  was  seat  for  five  years  to 
Sing  Sing. 

Johnson  was,  after  due  process  of  requisition  by  the 
governor  of  Pennsylvania,  on  the  governor  of  New  York, 
taken  to  Philadelphia,  tried,  and  sent  up  for  ten  years. 

In  a  short  time  after  the  breaking  up  of  this  gang  pro- 
ceedings were  taken  to  find  the  parties  to  whom  tho  col- 
laterals, other  than  Payne's,  belonged,  in  order  to  deliver 
them  up.  It  took  a  good  while  to  find  and  surely  identify 
them  ;  and  this  delivery  led  to  information  regarding  vari- 
ous matters  which  needed  the  keenest  detectives  to  un- 
ravel. I  was  overrun  with  business,  in  consequence,  for 
months  after,  incidents  of  which  I  may  think  best  to  relate 
in  other  papers. 

Mr.  Payne  was  the  happiest  of  men  over  his  good  fortune, 
and  insisted  on  deeding  to  me  some  very  valuable  real 
estate  in  Kentucky,  besides  giving  me  more  money  than  I 
had  the  face  to  ask.  He  became  my  fast  friend,  as  he  re- 
mains to-day. 

But  there,  was  a  happier  mortal  than  he  in  those  days, 
in  New  York,  when  all  came  to  be  disclosed,  and  that  was 
the  beautiful,  noble  old  lady,  his  mother,  Mrs.  Payne.  She 
could  hardly  contain  herself  in  her  joy,  when  Lewellyn 


MR.   PAYNE  KEEPS   HIS  PLEDGE.  175 

made  clean  confession  of  all  his  misdeeds,  all  his  great  sins, 
and  pledged  her  that  he  would  not  only  never  play  cards 
again  for  a  cent,  not  even  for  fun  —  a  pledge  which  he  sa- 
credly keeps  to  this  day.  His  experiences  were  too  great, 
his  sufferings  had  been  too  severe,  to  be  forgotten ;  and  Mr. 
Payne,  in  due  course  of  time,  went  into  legitimate  busi- 
ness, in  which  he  has  proven  himself  a  very  capable  man. 
Good  old  Mrs.  Payne  lived  happily  with  her  reformed 
son  for  about  four  years  and  a  half,  and  at  last  died  of  a 
fever,  which  followed  a  cold  contracted  one  wet  day,  on 
Mount  Washington,  New  Hampshire,  where  she  and  her  son 
were  passing  a  summer  vacation,  and  her  remains  were 
taken  back  to  Kentucky.  I  had  the  honor  of  accompany- 
ing Mr.  Payne  on  his  mournful  journey  there. 


THE  GENEALOGICAL  SWINDLERS. 


PRIDE  OP  ANCESTRY  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  —  IT  IS  SOMETIMES  MORE 
PBOFITABLE  TO  OTHERS  THAN -TO  THOSE  WHO  INDULGE  IT —  "PROP- 
ERTY IN  CHANCERY"  —  A  WESTERN  MERCHANT,  HIS  STORY,  AND  HOW 

HE     TOLD     IT A     FAMILY      MEETING      AT.    NEW      HAVEN,     AND     M'HAT     A 

MEMBER     LEARNED     THERE THE     GREAT      "  LORI),     KINO,    &    GRAHAM" 

SWINDLE  —  Till:  WAY  IN  WHICH  THE  FRAL'D  WAS  ACCOMPLISHED  — 
A  CUNNING  LETTER  FROM  "WILLIS  KING,"  OF  THE  FIRM  OF  "LORD, 

KING,  &    GRAHAM,"    TO    ONE  OF  IMS  RELATIVES THE    CORRESPONDENCE 

OF  THIS  NOTED  FIRM  THE  SEARCH THE  TRAP  LAID THE  SHARPERS 

CAUGHT,  AND  FOUND  TO  BE  EDUCATED  YOUNG  MEN  OF  THE  HIGHEST 
SOCIAL  STATUS  —  THEY  ARE  MADE  TO  DISGORGE  —  A  PARADOX,  WITH 
A  MORAL  IN  IT. 

THE  pride  of  ancestry  is  usually  great  among  those 
whose  ancestors  possessed  any  traits  of'  character  worthy 
to  be  remembered,  or  did  deeds  of  which  history  has 
made  emblazoned  record,  or  who  held  large  estates,  or 
were  in  other  respects  distinguished,  —  and  justly  great  is 
this  pride,  perhaps.  However,  it  is  not  to  be  overlooked 
that,  as  a  general  thing,  how  great  soever  the  pride  of 
the  progeny  may  justly  be,  that  of  the  ancestors  would 
probably  not  have  been  extreme,  in  most  cases,  could 
they  have  looked  forward  for  a  few  generations,  and  seen 
what  their  successors  in  time  were  to  be.  It  is  not  cer- 
tain that  some  of  them  would  have  refused  to  have  suc- 
cessors at  a5l,  and  might  not  in  very  shame  have  betaken 
themselves  to  the  cloister,  in  celibacy,  or  forsworn  their 
mistresses  altogether.  And  could  their  ancestors  have 
foreseen  that  even  their  greatness  would  be  overshadowed 
by  t',e  large  or  small  estates  which  they  might  leave, 

176 


A  MR.  KING  PRESENTS  HIMSELF.        177 

what  would  have  been  their  disgust  or  displeasure,  is  left 
to  us  to  conjecture. 

But  a  "  pride  of  ancestry  "  has  developed  itself  in  this 
country,  which,  if  it  is  not  altogether  profitable  to  those 
exercising  it,  is  sometimes  made  so  to  others ;  to  lawyers 
who  seek  fortunes  for  others,  and  who,  for  due  fees,  are 
ready  to  hunt  up  "  estates  in  chancery  "  in  England,  and 
find  them,  too,  if  they  are  there,  —  which  is  the  only  re- 
quisite for  the  finding,  except  the  fees.  At  sundry  times 
many  families  get  it  into  their  heads  that  there  ought  to 
be  property  of  their  ancestors  preserved  somewhere  for 
them,  and  talking  up  the  matter  among  themselves,  get 
feverish  over  it,  and  finally  assure  themselves  that  such 
property  exists,  and  that  it  is  their  first  duty  to  procure 
it.  Such  people  become  an  easy  prey  to  speculating  law- 
yers and  others,  who  find  it  an  easy  thing  to  whet  their 
hope?,  and  procure  money  from  them  to  make  "  primary 
investigations."  A  shrewd  lawyer,  wishing  to  make  the 
tour  of  Europe,  for  example,  can  readily  play  upon  the 
credulity  of  some  such  family,  and  induce  them  to  advance 
him  a  few  hundred  dollars  to  go  to  England  with  to  ex- 
amine records,  and  so  forth  ;  and  when  there,  can  send  home 
such  a  "  statement  of  the  case,"  so  full  of  hope,  as  to 
evoke  a  few  hundred,  or  a  thousand  or  two  more  dollars, 
in  order  to  retain  and  pay  first-class  counsel.  It  is  a 
shame  to  our  people  that  so  many  of  them  fall  victims  to 
tne  greed  for  money  in  this  line. 

I  hardly  knew  whether  the  more  to  be  vexed  at  the 
stupidity  of  the  sufferers,  or  amused  by  the  skill  >f  the 
intriguing  scamps  who  perpetrated  the  swindL  /  am 
about  to  disclose,  when  I  first  heard  of  it ;  and  I  confess  f 
haven't  yet  come  to  a  decision  on  that  point  after  the  lapse 
of  a  dozen  years  or  so. 

I  was  called  on  one  day  by  a  Western  merchant,  an  old 

man,  by  the  name  of  King.     He  was  a  New  Yorker  by 

birth,  he  said,  born  in  a  place  called  Janesville,  in  Saratoga 

County,  where  he  had  lived  to  maturity,  had  then  done 

11 


178  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

business  in  New  York  City  till  he  had  reached  beyond 
middle  age,  when,  failing  in  business,  he  had  retired  to 
some  land  he  had,  in  the  course  of  business,  acquired  in 
Illinois  ;  but  finding  farming  irksome,  had  managed  to  open 
a  little  country  store,  which  had  grown  upon  his  hands 
until  he  had,  in  the  process  of  time,  become  rich,  and  was 
in  the  habit  of  visiting  his  old  home  in  Saratoga  County 
every  year,  and  also  coming  on  to  the  city,  sometimes  to 
select  goods,  though  his  junior  partners  came  down  at  the 
same  time,  and  did  the  principal  business.  The  old  man 
had  learned  to  drink  whiskey  at  the  West,  in  order  to  keep 
off  the  "  fever-na-gur,"  as  he  called  it,  and  at  the  time  of 
visiting  me.  had  evidently  not  gotten  over  his  last  "  fud- 
dle "  at  home,  seme  weeks  before,  or  had  somehow  man- 
aged to  get  abundance  of  that  creature  comfort  —  "old 
rye  "  —  in  New  York ;  not  that  he  was  drunk,  but  he  was 
"  keyed  up  "  to  a  good  pitch  —  a  height  from  which  he 
surveyed  all  the  glory  of  the  King  family,  and  felt  that 
nothing  but  royal  blood  flowed  in  his  own  veins ;  and  who 
knows  but  the  blood  was  royal  ?  It  might  have  been  the 
whiskey,  however,  —  but  what  matters  it  ?  The  old  man 
descanted  a  long  time  on  the  glory  of  his  ancestry,  and 
the  pride  of  his  race ;  claimed  relationship  to  the  great 
Rufus  King  of  New  York,  and  all  the  Kings  by  name,  who 
were  of  any  account ;  spoke  of  their  natural  pride ;  said 
that  they  were  always  ready  to  avenge  any  insult  to  their 
name,  come  from  what  source  it  might,  and  so  forth,  ahd 
so  forth.  It  was  in  vain  that  I  interrupted  him  at  times 
at  the  end  of  a  sentence,  in  order  to  ask  him  to  come  to 
the  point.  Talk  he  would,  in  his  own  way  ;  and  as  he  was 
a  white-haired  man,  the  outlines  of  whose  face  showed  that 
he  was  a  gentleman  when  not  in  liquor,  especially  (and  he 
was  thoroughly  gentlemanly  at  the  time,  though  vexatious- 
ly  garrulous),  I  thought  I  would  let  him  have  his  talk 
out  in  his  own  way.  At  last  he  got  to  tell  me  that  some 
months  before  he  had  been  swindled  out  of  a  dollar,  and 
thai  a  Jarge  number  of  the  King  family,  he  had  recently 


OF  THE  KING   FAMILY  MEETING.  179 

learned,  had  each  been  defrauded  to  the  amount  of  a  dol- 
lar, and  that  some  of  them,  moved  by  family  pride,  had,  as 
he  had  been  informed,  made  effort  to  discover  and  punish 
the  defrauding  parties,  but  had  failed.  He  felt  his  pride 
wounded  at  this.  The  King  family  had  made  an  effort 
to  find  out  the  parties  who  had  so  questioned  their  good 
sense  as  to  successfully  swindle  them,  and  such  a  number 
of  them,  too  —  and  failed.  This  he  could  not  endure.  If 
all  that  had  been  lost  had  been  wheedled  out  of  one  mem- 
ber of  the  family,  if  he  himself,  for  example,  had  been  the 
ohly  victim,  he  could  have  "endured  that,  and  would,  for 
the  pride  of  the  name,  have  endured  it  in  silence.  But 
the  whole  race  had  been  insulted,  the  very  family  coat  of 
arms  had  been  mocked,  and  he  would  not  suffer  it  any 
longer.  There  had  been,  a  few  days  before  he  came  to 
me,  a  large  gathering  of  the  King  family  from  all  over  the 
country.  If  I  remember  rightly,  this  was  at  New  Haven, 
about  the  time  of  commencement  at  Yale  College.  The 
Kings  of  Georgia  shook  hands  there  with  the  Kings  of 
New  York  and  the  Western  States,  and  so  on  ;  and  it  was 
there  that  he  learned  how  extensive  had  been  the  swin- 
dle. Some  of  the  family  had  talked  and  laughed  about  it 
as  a  good  joke,  and  poked  fun  at  each  other  about  it.  But 
the  old  man  considered  that  these  were  degenerate  in 
spirit,  and  spoke  of  them  with  a  degree  of  shame.  Per- 
sons present  at  the  gathering,  with  King  blood  in  their 
veins,  but  bearing  other  than  the  King  name,  —  the  sons 
of  King  daughters,  by  men  who  rejoiced  not  in  so  royal  a 
name,  —  made  great  sport  of  the  swindle,  and  said  that  peo- 
ple high  in  position,  like  Kings,  emperors,  etc.,  were  more 
subject  to  such  things  than  people  of  undistinguished 
names  and  of  low  estate,  and  assured  the  King  relatives 
that  the  latter  ought  to  feel  complimented  by  the  defer- 
ence that  had  been  paid  to  them  by  the  swindlers.  The 
old  man  felt  sore  over  this  style  of  joking;  felt  that  the 
name  had  been  trifled  with,  and  he  was  resolved  to  let  the 
jokers  "  see  that  there  was  yet  the  '  true  spirit '  in  the 


180  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

King  blood  to  avenge  an  insult,"  —  and  so  he  did  at  last. 
He  was  not  particular  about  "  terms."  He  was  willing  to 
pay  abundantly,  for  he  was  rich, —  rich  on  that  day,  at 
least,  —  and  persuaded  me  to  take  hold  of  the  matter  by 
advancing  me,  —  and  insisting  on  my  taking  it,  —  double 
what  I  told  him  it  might  cost  to  make  thorough  work  of 
the  matter.  I  told  him  I  had  not  a  particle  of  hope,  for  I 
saw  no  prospect  whatever  of  tracing  out  the  perpetrators 
of  this  fraud  in  question  months  after  it  had  been  accom- 
plished. But  I  took  the  matter  in  hand,  and  hearing  his 
story  in  full,  told  him  to  call  next  day,  for  I  might,  on  re- 
flection, wish  to  consult  him  again.  He  left  with  me  a 
letter,  which  a  son  of  his  had  received  —  the  man  to  whom 
I  was  indebted  for  my  engagement  in  the  matter.  His 
son,  and  a  partner  of  his  in  business  at  Utica,  N.  Y.,  had 
about  a  year  before  had  occasion  to  engage  my  services 
in  tracing  out  some  forgers,  who  had  been  "  speculating  " 
a  little  upon  them ;  and  when  he  found  his  father,  against 
his  advice,  was  determined  to  do  something  about  the  mat- 
ter in  question,  he  told  him  he  had  better  employ  a  regu- 
lar detective,  and  so  sent  him  to  me.  I  kept  this  letter 
for  a  long  time,  and,  indeed,  had  three  or  four  copies  of 
it,  which  I  got,  some  from  the  Kings,  and  others  from  some 
persons  by  the  name  of  Perkins,  who  had  been  victimized 
at  the  same  time.  I  supposed  I  could  readily  find  a  copy 
now ;  but  in  the  multitude  of  vicissitudes  to  which  a  de- 
tective's papers  and  "  things  sacred,"  as  well  as  those  of 
other  people,  are  subjected,  the  letters  have  become  mis- 
placed or  lost.  But  my  memory  is  pretty  retentive,  and  I 
can  reproduce  the  letter  so  nearly  that  I  presume  several 
thousands  of  people  in  the  land  would,  trusting  to  their 
own  memories,  say  that  it  is  a  perfect  copy,  for  these  sev- 
eral thousands  and  their  families  were  the  victims.  The 
letter  purported  to  be,  at  its  head,  the  advertisement  of  a 
great  firm  of  lawyers  in  New  York  City ;  or  rather  the  pro- 
fessional firm  name  was  displayed  in  type  at  the  head  of  an 
ordinary  full-sized  letter  sheet,  thus :  — 


THE  CUNNING  LETTER.  181 

LORD,  KING,  &  GRAHAM, 

Attorneys  and  Counsellors  at  Law. 

(Address,  P.  0.  box  1070.) 

DANIEL  LORD. 

WILLIS  KING.  * 

J.  PERKINS  GRAHAM. 

X~ew  York, ,  1S5  . 

[The  above  was  printed  in  an  elegant  manner  upon  the 
nicest  paper.  Under  this  was  written  a  letter,  the  same 
to  the  Kings,  the  Lords,  the  Grahams,  and  Perkinses,  with 
the  exception  that  when  writing  to  a  King,  the  "  King 
family  "  was  named,  in  the  place  where,  when  writing  to 
a  Perkins,  the  "  Perkins  family  "  was  named  ;  and  the  let- 
ter ran  pretty  much  after  this  sort;  for  example : — ] 

WILLIAM  KING,  ESQ., 

Quincy,  Illinois. 

DEAR  SIR:  Our  firm,  in  the  course  of  investigations, 
which  it"  has  made  during  the  last  year  among  the  records 
of  the  High  Court  of  Chancery  in  England,  discovered  that 
there  is  a  vast  estate  lying  in  chancery  there  for  the  de- 
scendants of  John  King,  who  came  to  this  country  in  the 
year  1754,  as  near  as  we  can  learn.  In  behalf  of  the  King 
family  in  this  country,  I  have  undertaken  to  make  out  a 
genealogical  list  of  the  direct  descendants,  and  their 
branches,  from  said  John,  and  have  found  a  branch,  of 
which  I  suppose  you  to  be  a  member,  and  if  so,  entitled  to 
your  share  in  the  estate.  Will  you  have  the  kindness  to 
forward  me  your  pedigree,  as  fully  as  you  understand  it,  or 
are  able  to  obtain  it  ?  I  am  making  out  a  genealogy  of  the 
King  family,  which  will  be  furnished  to  those  wanting  at 
its  cost  price,  one  dollar.  This  list  will  be  used  in  bring- 
ing suit  in  England,  and  it  is  desirable  that  all  Kings 
claiming  relationship  to  the  said  John  should  be  registered 
therein,  as  this  will  be  made  a  part  of  the  pleadings  in  the 
case,  and,  according  to  a-  peculiarity  of  the  English  law, 


182  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

only  such  as  are  thus  made  parties  to  this  suit  will  receive 
;i  share  in  the  estate.  Your  name  will  be  at  once  regis- 
tered on  receipt  of  the  dollar  and  your  pedigree.  Please, 
be  as  particular  as  you  can  about  the  latter. 

Yours,  very  respectfully, 

WILLIS  KINO. 

•  • 

The  letters  I  saw  all  seemed  to  be  written  in  the  same 
rapid,  half-clerkly,  half-lawyerlike,  but  elegant  scrawl, 
whether  written  to  a  Perkins  or  a  King.  It  will  be  seen, 
that  the  third  partner  —  "J.  Perkins  Graham"  —  could 
represent  both  the  Graham  and  the  Perkins  family,  and  I 
suppose  he  did.  So  there  were  in  the  scheme  four  fam- 
ilies to  be  preyed  upon,  —  Lord,  King,  Graham,  and  Per- 
kins ;  and  these  families  are  numerous  over  the  land, 
and  many  of  them  in  high  positions.  I  learned  from  the 
scamps,  after  their  detection,  that  they  received  all  sorts 
of  epistles,  from  the  lowly  Lord  up  to  the  exalted  one,  who 
wrote  on  paper  displaying  flaming  coats  of  arms,  and  their 
letters  bearing  a  huge  seal.  So  with  the  rest  of  the  fam- 
ilies. The  swindlers  had  spent  some  time  in  hunting 
through  all  the  directories  of  other  cities  and  towns 
which  they  could  find  in  New  York,  and  gathered  all  they 
could  from  advertisements  in  newspapers  for  a  year  or  so, 
before  they  launched  out  in  their  long-meditated  scheme. 
Meanwhile  they  were  practising  their  cunning  arts  in 
other  swindles.  They  also  wrote  to  the  postmasters  of 
a  large  number  of  towns,  enclosing  to  one  a  letter  for  a 
King,  to  another  a  letter  for  a  Perkins,  to  still  another  a 
letter  for  a  Graham,  asking  each  postmaster  to  have  the 
kindness  to  "  read  the  accompanying  letter,"  and  to  pass 
it  over  to  any  King,  Perkins,  and  so  on,  who  might  be 
within  the  delivery  of  his  office,  or  in  his  vicinity.  These 
letters  they  got  copied  by  a  clerk  at  a  few  cents  (five,  I 
think)  apiece.  So  when  they  got  a  dollar  back  it  paid 
for  about  twelve  letters,  inclusive  of  stationery  and  post- 
age. A  hundred  letters  and  the  postage  would  cost  them 


THE  FINANCIAL   USES  OF  CREDULITY.  183 

about  twelve  dollars,  and  from  a  hundred  they  would 
probably  get  fifty,  if  riot  more,  favorable  answers.  From 
several  thousand  letters  they  received  several  thousand 
dollars,  aside  from  large  sums  which,  by  subsequent  cor- 
respondence, they  swindled  out  of  such  pompous,  or  other 
parties,  as,  judging  by  their  letters,  they  thought  they 
could  further  entrap.  Some  of  these  forwarding  to  the 
famous  firm  of  Lord,  King.  &  Graham  as  high  as  a  hun- 

•  dred  dollars  to  be  guaranteed  especial  effort  in  their  be- 
half!    It  is  almost  too  preposterous  to  be  believed,  but 
such  was  the  fact  —  such  the  credulity  of  some  who  occu- 
pied political  positions  of  note  ;  one  of  them,  indeed,  being 
at  the  time  a  member  of  Congress  !     But  credulity  in  mat- 
ters of  this  kind  is  a  weakness,  alike  of  the  poor  and  the 

*  rich,  the  educated  and  uneducated.     The  device  of  these 
gwindlers  proved  to  be  more  profitable  than  one  would 
have,  on  first  thought,  judged  possible,  so  much  greater  is 
human  credulity  than  we  are  wont  to  consider  it.     Per- 
haps credulity  is  the  only  thing  in  the  world  that  we  are 
not  apt  to  overrate.     But  it  is  not  strange  that  it  should 
be  great  touching  material  things,  when  in  matters  of 
religion  the  most  absurd  fancies  have,  from  time  immemo- 
rial, down  through  the  ages  of  Oriental,  pagan,  and  other 
religions   to   the  days  of  Mohammedanism  and  Mormon- 
ism,  had   possession   of  the   human   soul,  ruled   nation*, 
gathered  armies,  and  taught  millions  of  millions  of  human 
beings   to   sacrifice    each   other   in   death,   willingly  and 
proudly.     And   in   the    matter   of  money-getting,  where 
hope  may  be  whetted,  in  order  to  inspire  the  actor,  —  as 
in  reaching  out  for  a  fortune  in  chancery,  —  their  credu- 
lity usurps  a  wondrous  supremacy,  and  carries  all  along 
with  it.     So  many  of  the  most  intelligent  representatives 
of  the  various  families  addressed  by  "  Lord,  King,  <fe  Gra- 
ham "  fell-as  readily  into  the  trap  as  the  least  intelligent. 
Now  and  then  a  man,  a  little  more  wary  than  the  rest, 
wrote,  wishing  to  make  further  inquiries  about  the  prop- 
erty in  chancery,  how  it  came  to  be  discovered,  what  was 


184  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

its  amount,  about  how  many,  probably,  it  would  have 
to  be  divided  between,  etc.,  etc.  But  he  could  not,  alter 
asking  so  many  questions,  neglect  to  enclose  the  small 
amount  of  a  dollar  ;  and  the  swindlers  taking  his  measure 
by  his  letter,  would  generally  reply  in  so  cunning  a  man- 
ner as  to  finally  elicit  from  him  a  "  contribution  "  of  from 
twenty-five  to  a  hundred  dollars,  in  order  to  prosecute 
the  matter  in  England. 

In  some  instances  persons  who  had  received  letters 
wrote  that  they  were  coming  on  to  New  York  in  a  few 
days,' and  would  call  and  talk  over  the  matter.  Replies 
would  be  made  to  these,  that  "  our  Mr.  Perkins,"  or  "  Mr. 
Lord,"  or  whatever  name  the  special  letter-writer  bore, 
and  "  who  has  exclusive  charge  of  the  matter  in  question," 
is  away  from  home,  gone  to  meet  some  of  the  family  in  — 
(Kentucky, for  example);  that  he  would  proceed,  immediate- 
ly on  his  return,  to  England,  etc.,  so  as  to  keep  the  party 
from  making  investigations,  and  finding  that  there  was  no 
such  firm  as  "  Lord,  King,  <fe  Graham,"  generally  managing 
to  conclude  the  letter  in  some  such  way  as  not  only  to  win 
the  one  dollar  at  once,  but  to  elicit  more  from  the  man ; 
as,  for  instance,  suggesting  that  some  of  the  Perkinses  were 
making  up  a  sum,  by  the  contribution  of  ten  dollars  each, 
to  secure  special  legal  talent  in  England,  and  intimating  that 
the  interests  of  those  who  took  a  generous  and  manly  puit 
in  prosecuting  the  matter  would  be  likely  to  be  better 
looked  out  for  than  would  the  interests  of  those  who  are 
not  so  generous.  The  family  pride  of  the  correspondent 
would  often  be  flattered  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  him 
go  deeper  into  his  pockets.  The  recital  of  affairs,  as 
given  mo  by  one  of  the  swindlers,  himself  a  young  man 
of  fine  education  and  genius,  was  very  amusing.  It  was  a 
pity,  he  said,  that  they  had  not  preserved  all  the  corre- 
spondence. It  would  have  made  a  most  remarkable  book, 
as  funny,  in  parts,  as  anything  Thackeray  ever  wrote.  It 
was  serious  and  serio-comical ;  bombastic  and  Pecksniffian- 
ly  humble.  It  represented  all  grades  of  society,  from  the 


OF  THE  CORRESPONDENTS^  185 

"  Lord  "  who  "  drove  stage  "  for  a  living,  up  to  the  "  King  " 
who  had  a  seat  in  Congress.  Widows,  whose  deceased 
husbands'  names  had  been  culled  from  ten  years  old  direc- 
tories, wrote  mournful  stories  about  "  the  late  Mr.  William 
Lord,"  or  "  James  Perkins,"  or  whatever  the  names  might 
have  been,  and  declared  that  their  late  partners  had  al- 
ways told  them  there  was  an  immense  estate  in  England 
for  them,  and  so  on.  The  pious  and  the  less  pious  each 
wrote  his  peculiar  letter.  But  what  was  most  noticeable 
was,  that  almost  all  of  them  assumed  the  airs  of  "  nabobs." 
And  why  shouldn't  they  ?  'Were  they  not  on  the  eve  of 
becoming  immensely  rich?  And  what  is  there  in  this 
world,  with  its  grievous  labors  and  trials,  comparable 
to  riches  ?  I  presume  this  same  sort  of  trick  could  be  suc- 
cessfully played  with  almost  any  family  in  the  land  which 
has  an  American  line  extending  back  of  the  Revolution, 
say,  for  a  hundred  years,  and  with  many  of  less  age, 
so  great  is  the  desire  to  get  riches.  Indeed,  there  is  a 
lawyer  in  Vermont  who  has  made  the  matter  of  searching 
out  estates  in  England  a  study.  He  spent  ten  years  in 
England  in  hunting  up  genealogies  and  titles ;  has  a 
regular  partner  in  London  to  whom  he  transmits  business 
from  this  country,  and  publishes  a  good-sized  pamphlet 
filled  with  the  names  of  families  residing  in  America,  and 
entitled  to  property  in  England.  This  lawyer  now  and 
then  gets  an  important  case,  in  which  his  fees  amount 
to  something  handsome,  —  sometimes  to  twenty  thousand 
dollars. 

But  this  is  wandering  from  the  direct  line  of  my  story, 
though,  perchance,  it  is  far  more  interesting  than  the  sim- 
ple detecting  part  of  the  tale.  My  old  friend  King  left 
the  city,  and  went  home  a  few  days  after  I  accepted  the 
work  ;  but  his  interest  did  not  flag  because  he  had  handed 
over  the  matter  to  another,  but  rather  increased.  His  let- 
ters were  very  frequent,  sometimes  three  a  week,  none  of 
which,  except  the  first,  did  I  take  the  trouble  to  reply  to 
for  a  long  while.  I  soon  found  that  I  needed  more  facts 

8 


186  .  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

than  I  had  in  my  possession  to  enable  me  to  reach  any 
practical  result.  It  was  impossible  to  find  any  job  printer 
in  the  city  who  had  ever  done  a  job  for  "  Lord,  King,  and 
Graham."  Nobody  had  ever  seen  the  letter-head  before, 
and  no  one  could  suggest  where  the  work  was  probably 
done.  It  was  not  recognized  as  like  the  style  of  anybody. 
Possibly  it  was  done  out  of.  the  city  ;  but  the  fact  was,  as 
I  afterwards  learned,  that  it  had  been  done  privately  by 
a  firm  which  had  meanwhile  failed  in  business,  and  I  was 
baffled  on  that  point.  I  expected  to  fail,  and  so  gave  but 
little  heed  to  the  matter ;  but  it  finally  occurred  to  me  that 
if  I  could  find  some  King,  or  somebody  else  who  had  re- 
ceived a  letter  and  not  replied  to  it,  that  he  might  at  that 
late  day  make  reply  in  such  way  as  to  get  into  a  corre- 
spondence with  the  parties,  and  I  could  then  have  them 
followed  from  the  post  office,  or  in  some  other  way  trap 
them.  About  this  time  I  went  on  to  Louisville,  Ky.,  and 
there  encountered  a  gentleman,  one  of  the  King  family, — 
we  will  call  him  Lemuel,  for  a  name,  —  whom  I  had  not  met 
in  some  fifteen  years  before.  Ho  was  a  New  Yorker  by  birth, 
and  I  had  known  him  when  a  school-boy.  Lemuel  was  a 
bright  boy,  and  made  a  most  acute  man.  When  I  asked 
him  if  he  had  ever  done  business  with  "  Lord,  King,  <fe 
Graham,"  of  New  York,  he  laughed  outright,  and  ex- 
claimed, "  No;  but  my  George,  you  knew  him,  has, and  got 
badly  bitten."  When  1  found  out  this,  I  disclosed  to  him 
my  reason  for  inquiring,  and  found  that  he  had  on  file 
somewhere  the  letter  from  "  L.,  K.,  &  G,"  which  was 
hunted  out,  and  we  coined  a  letter  to  the  firm,  which  was 
calculated  to  wake  up  any  one  of  them  who  should  receive 
it.  Mr.  King's  letter  had  been  found,  sealed  and  unopened 
of  course,  in  a  package  of  letters,  and  he  wrote  hastily, 
-with  great  anxiety,  to  know  if  it  was  too  late  yet  to  be  put 
in  the  genealogical  list  for  the  dollar ;  and  intimated  his 
desire  to  contribute  anything  of  a  reasonable  amount  to 
the  prosecution  of  the  searc'.i  and  claim  for  the  estate. 
This  letter  was  posted,  and  I  hurried  back  to  New  York, 


A   TRAP  FINALLY   SET.  187 

suspecting  that  it  would  appear  in  the  list  of  advertised 
letters,  as  it  did ;  and  thinking  that  it  would  meet  the  eye 
of  some  one  of  the  firm  who  would  be  curious  to  get  it, 
I  had  a  man  stationed  in  the  post  office,  along  with  the 
delivery  clerk,  and  when  the  man  came,  as  I  suspected  he 
would,  and  asked  for  the  advertised  letter,  the  clerk  de- 
layed the  delivery  long  enough  to  enable  my  man  to  get 
out  near  the  fellow,  and  follow  him.  He  found  that  the 
man  entered  a  law  office  in  Nassau  Street,  and  that  the 
real  estate  business  was  also  attended  to  in  the  same  office. 
So  we  devised  a  business  call  upon  the  office,  and  got 
well  acquainted  with  the  man  who  took  out  the  letter.  He 
caught  at  this  bait,  as  I  soon  learned  from  Louisville,  and  I 
carried  a  letter  in  reply  to  his,  which  led  him  along  till  I 
was  fully  satisfied  that  the  lawyers  and  real  estate  men 
were  all  of  a  piece.  I  "  laid  in  "  with  the  post  office  clerk 
to  let  me  know  when  a  letter  bearing  Mr.  King's  mono- 
grain,  from  Louisville,  should  arrive.  The  clerk  delayed 
its  delivery  one  day,  and  I  made  a  call  into  the  office  at  the 
time  one  of  the  partners  went  for  their  mail.  He  returned 
smiling,  and  passed  the  letter,  which  he  had  read,  over  to 
the  other  party.  There  was  an  amount  of  blind  talk  over 
it.  Finally  they  excused  themselves  to  retire  into  the 
"  counsel-room,"  and  coming  out,  the  lawyer  sat  down  and 
answered  the  letter.  I  left  the  office  soon  after,  and  had 
the  letter  intercepted  at  the  post  office,  which  I  took  into 
my  possession. 

I  then  sent  to  Louisville  for  the  letters  which  had  pre- 
ceded this,  and  receiving  the  same,  I  now  had  the  writing 
of  two  of  them  in  my  possession,  and  I  had  managed  in  a 
business  way  to  possess  myself  of  sundry  documents  writ- 
ten by  each  of  these  men,  and  I  found  other  parties,  too,, 
who  could  identify  the  handwriting  of  each;  and  having 
secured  these,  I  advertised  in  a  Philadelphia  paper,  also 
in  a  Boston  paper,  in  one  at  Utica,  and  one  in  Cincinnati, 
to  the  effect  that  any  person  by  the  name  of  King  (that 
for  Philadelphia),  or  any  person  by  the  name  of  Lord  (for 


188  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

Boston),  and  so  on,  might  hear  of  something  to  his  ad- 
vantage by  calling  on  so  and  so  any  time  during  the  week. 
1  made  arrangements  with  brother  detectives  in  these 
places  to  receive  their  calls,  and  instructed  them  what  to 
say.  In  this  way  I  became,  in  the  course  of  two  weeks, 
in  possession  of  abundant  facts  to  convince  the  firm  of 
Lord,  King,  &  Graham  that  we  had  them  trapped ;  and 
one  day,  taking  an  officer  along  with  me,  and  setting  watch 
till  I  saw  that  the  two  men  I  have  spoken  of  were  in  their 
office,  dropped  in,  and  said,  "  Gentlemen,  I  have  been  here 
often  on  business  affairs,  and  we  have  got  along  very 
pleasantly,  and  I  have  invariably  found  your  advice  good ; 
but  I've  something  now  which  I  fear  will  puzzle  you ;  per- 
haps you  can  help  me  out.  By  the  way,  if  you  please,  as 
it's  private,  I'll  lock  the  door,"  stepping  towards  it. 

"  0,  certainly,  certainly,"  said  both  of  them  at  once.  I 
locked  the  door,  and  putting  the  key  in  my  pocket,  said, 
"Perhaps,  gentlemen,  you  think  I  am  over-cautious  in 
pocketing  the  key  ;  but  my  business  is  serious,  and  —  you 
are  my  prisoners."  There  was  astonishment,  and  differing 
shades  of  color  going  and  coming  on  their  cheeks. 

"  Give  me  the  key  !  "  exclaimed  the  lawyer,  finally,  re- 
suming his  composure  in  a  measure.  "  'Twouldn't  do  you 
any  good,"  said  I,  "  for  I  have  brother  officers  at  the  door, 
and  the  best  way  is  to  sit  down  and  talk  over  the  matter 
coolly.  You  naturally  wish  to  know  why  you  are  my 
prisoners.  I'll  tell  you.  Some  months  ago  you  carried 
on  a  system  of  frauds  under  the  name  of  '  Lord,  King,  & 
Graham.'  I  was  lately  employed  to  work  up  the  case. 
I've  all  the  facts  necessary  for  your  conviction ;  your  hand- 
writing, and  so  forth,  and  so  forth,  in  my  possession ;  "  an-1 
then  I  read  them  a  series  of  names  of  those  they  had 
swindled,  and  said,  "  although  I  don't  need  to  do  so,  yet  I 
am  going  to  cause  your  back  office  there  to  be  searched." 
One  of  them  started  to  rise  in  his  seat.  "  Sit  still,  or  I 
shall  handcuff  you,"  said  I;  and* I  stepped  to  the  door, 
called  in  the  officer,  relocked  the  door,  and  put  the  key  in 


THE   FRIGHTENED  SCAMPS.  189 

my  pocket,  and  directed  ray  man  to  go  into  the  other  room 
and  possess  himself  of  all  books  and  papers  which  he  could 
find  there,  and  search  especially  for  anything  bearing  on 
the  "  Lord,  King,  &  Graham"  business  —  (I  had  told  him 
all  about  it  before) ;  "  and,  gentlemen,  I  propose  to  take 
possession  of  all  your  papers  here."  My  man  was  hunting 
over  matters  vigorously  in  the  other  room  while  I  was  at 
work  briskly  searching  the  larger  room,  when  the  lawyer 
rose, and  said, "  Gentlemen,  I  see  you've  got  us.  I'll  give  you 
up  what  books  there  are  left,  and  you  can  make  what  you 
please  out  of  them ;  they  won't  do  you  any  good,  however." 
"  Please  to  deliver  them  up,  and  I  will  see  as  to  that." 
They  were  produced — journals  of  accounts  ;  and  fortunate- 
ly in  one  1  found  three  letters  written  out,  but  which,  for 
some  reason,  had  never  been  sent,  in  the  writing  of  "  J. 
Perkins  Graham,"  which  I  discovered  to  be  that  of  the 
letter  written  by  the  lawyer  to  my  friend  in  Louisville.  I 
also  searched  the  books,  and  found  entries  therein  in  his 
hand.  Taking  out  his  letter  from  my  pocket,  "  There,"  said 
I,  "  is  your  late  letter  to  Mr.  King,  of  Louisville.  I  saw 
you  write  it,  can  prove  your  hand  by  a  half  dozen  persons 
in  this  building;  and  that"  (taking  up  a  newly-found  let- 
ter), "  is  yours,  and  here  are  entries  in  your  hand,  and  I 
have  your  friend  caught  still  more  firmly.  Now  you  see 
the  relation  of  things,  and  we  needn't  dispute;  how  will 
you  settle  this  business?  All  the  expenses  I  have  been  to 
must  be  met  first,  and  you  can't  object  to  paying  a  hand- 
some sum  for  the  education,  discipline,  and  experience  you 
have  had  in  this  business.  You've  learned  a  good  deal  of 
human  nature.  I  don't  propose  to  be  hard  with  you,  but 
my  instructions  are  to  expose  you  through  the  public 
press,  —  you  two,  and  the  rest  of  you,  —  for  I  know  you 
all."  There  was  consternation  in  their  countenances,  and 
I  had  no  great  difficulty  in  bringing  them  to  terms,  for  I 
informed  them  that  I  knew  all  about  their  social  standing, 
and  that  of  their  relatives,  especially  dwelling  upon  the 
relatives  of  one  of  them  who  was  at  that  time  absent,  but 


190  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

• 

whom  I  had  inextricably  caught  with  the  rest.  The  lawyer 
was  willing,  and  so  was  his  friend,  to  submit  to  "  any 
reasonable  terms,"  an  item  of  which  was  the  returning 
to  those  whom  they  had  swindled  out  of  ten  dollars  and 
upwards  the  money  they  had  defrauded  them  of,  as 
nearly  as  from  the  books  and  memory  they  could  make  out, 
and  to  bear  the  expense  of  such  correspondence  as  I 
should  think  necessary.  They  were  also  to  pay  all  expen- 
ses I  had  been  to,  and  to  give  me  full  wages  for  the  time 
I  had  been  at  work,  the  account  of  which  made  no  small 
sum.  There  was  no  need  of  my  holding  them  under  ar- 
rest, for  they  could  better  afford  to  come  to  my  terms  than 
to  run  away  and  be  exposed  in  the  public  papers.  Be- 
sides, they  could  not  think  of  such  a  thing  on  account  of 
their  relatives.  The  father  of  one  of  them  was  a  clergy- 
man, in  high  standing,  and  the  rest  held  higher  social  posi- 
tion than  he,  and  the  terms,  were  duly  complied  with  oa 
the  return  of  the  third  party  the  next  day. 

I  kept  possession  of  the  books,  had  a  short  letter,  in  the 
form  of  a  circular,  printed  and  sent  to  all  the  parties  whose 
names  were  on  the  books,  and  were  marked  with  a  little 
cross,  which  they  told  me  meant  those  who  had  responded, 
in  which  was  set  forth  the  fact  of  the  swindle,  with  a  request 
that  each  party  should  reply  as  to  how  much  he  had  lost, 
especially  over  ten  dollars,  and  make  affidavit  of  his  loss 
before  some  notary  public  or  other  officer  in  his  vicinity. 
The  amount  thus  heard  from  was  over  three  thousand  dol- 
lars (not  counting  the  several  thousands  which  came  in 
one  dollar  at  a  time).  On  the  three  thousand  and  upwards 
I  charged,  as  permitted  to  do,  ten  per  cent,  for  "  collect- 
ing ; "  but  it  was  a  bothersome  business,  and  vexed  me 
more  than  it  profited  me.  My  acquaintance  got  to  bo 
somewhat  intimate  with  these  sharpers,  who  were  all  men 
of  education,  and  very  adroit,  as  the  reader  may  well  con- 
ceive, from  the  fact  of  their  perpetrating  their  frauds  on 
some  of  the  shrewdest  and  most  important  men  in  the 
land.  They  kept  files  of  some  of  their  letters,  as  we|J  as 


.    OLD   MR.   KING'S  DELIGHT.  191 

• 

copy-books,  which  revealed  the  most  consummate  skill  on 
their  part.  Indeed,  as  I  said  before,  I  sometimes  hardly 
knew  whether  to  swear,  to  laugh,  or  be  indignant  over  this 
subtle  fraud. 

Old  Mr.  King,  who  first  employed  me,  was  delighted 
with  the  detection  of  the  villains,  but  could  never  forgive 
me  for  not  exposing  them  to  the  public.  However,  he 
took  all  the  credit  which  was  fairly  due  him,  if  not  more, 
and  considered  that  the  good  name  of  King  in  America 
was  at  last  preserved  from  the  shame  which  easy  imposi- 
tion had  brought  it,  and  used  to  say  that  the  Lords,  Per- 
kinses, and  Grahams  of  the  country  all  owed  the  Kings  a 
great  debt  of  gratitude.  But  as  my  name  is  not  King,  I 
sometimes  used  to  reflect  that  perhaps  they  owed  grati- 
tude to  some  others  than  Kings  as  well,  for  the  largest 
share  of  the  money  returned  went  to  Lords  and  Perkinses. 
Not  a  Graham,  save  one  in  North  Carolina,  had  been  de- 
frauded of  over  one  dollar.  For  many  it  proved  better  to 
have  been  swindled  out  of  ten  dollars  or  more,  than  it 
would  have  been  to  have  lost  only  a  dollar,  —  a  paradox, 
with  a  moral  in  it,  which  I  leave  to  the  reader's  solution. 


HATTIE  NEWBERRY,  THE  VERMONT 
BEAUTY. 


"  SOCIETY,  FOR  THE  HOST  PART,  CREATES  THE  CRIMES  WHICH  IT  PUNISHES" 

A  BEAUTIFUL  GIRL  ON  THE  CARS  FROM  RUTLAND,  VERMONT,  ON  THE 

WAY  TO  BELLOWS'  FALLS,  BESET  BY  NKW  YORK  ROGUES  —  A  DETECTIVE 
RECOGNIZES  IN  HER  THE  FORMER  PLAYMATE  OF  HIS  OWN  DAUGHTER 

HE   ENCOUNTERS  THE   ROGUES  AT    BELLOWS*   FALLS,   AND   KNOCKS 

ONE  OF  THEM  DOWN  IN  THE  LADIES*  ROOM THEY  ALL  TAKE  THE 

KEXT  TRAIN,  AND  MOVE  SOUTHWARD,  ON  THEIR  WAY  TO  NEW  YORK 

INCIDENTS  OF  THE   JOURNEY A  THIRD  VILLAIN  GETS  ABOARD  AT 

HARTFORD,  CONN.  WHY  HATTIE  WAS  GOING  TO  NEW  YORK AN  OLD 

TALE  —  THE  DETECTIVE  GIVES  HATTIE  MUCH  GOOD  ADVICE  —  A  SKIL- 
FUL MANOEUVRE,  ON  ARRIVING  IN  NEW  YORK,  TO  PUT  THE  ROGUES  OFF 
THE  TRACK  —  A  PAINFUL  DISCOVERY  AT  LAST  —  A  DEEP,  DEVILISH  PLOT 
OF  THE  VILLAINS  DRIVES  HATTIE  TO  DESPAIR,  AND  SHE  IS  RESCUED 
FROM  A  SUICIDE'S  GRAVE  —  THE  ROGUES  PROVE  TO  BE  THE  MOST 

HEARTLESS   OF   VILLAINS,   AND   ARE   CAUGHT,  AND  DULY  PUNISHED 

HATTIE  RETURNS  EVENTUALLY  TO  VERMONT,  AFTER  HAVING  MARRIED 
HER  OLD  LOVER  —  THIS  TALE  IS  ONE  OF  THE  SADDEST  AS  WELL,  AS 
MOST  INTERESTING  OF  EXPERIENCES  THROUGHOUT. 

IT  was  my  original  intention  when  I  contracted  with  my 
publishers  for  these  sketches  from  my  diary,  to  avoid  such 
narratives  as  hinged  upon  matters  of  love  between  the 
sexes,  and  especially  to  avoid  all  those  matters  of  abduc- 
tion of  females  for  unholy  purposes,  the  detection  and  ex- 
posure of  the  schemes  of  procuresses,  or  the  rescuing  from 
a  life  of  infamy  girls  of  respectable  parentage  and  home 
surroundings,  from-  both  the  country  and  city  —  matters 
which  frequently  come  into  the  hands  of  detectives,  and 
with  which  old  detectives,  in  particular,  are  painfully  con- 
rersant.  I  could  fill  a  quarto  volume  with  what  has  come 
under  my  own  eye  of  that  nature,  with  recitals  far  more 
romantic  in  their  truthfulness  than  are  the  cunning  de- 

m 


"IGNORANCE   IS  BLISS"   SOMETIMES.  193 

vices  of  the  most  imaginative  novelists.  Indeed,  the  more 
astute  novelists  of  the  sensation  school  are  wise  enough  to 
gather  instruction,  and  obtain  from  interviews  with  detec- 
tives the  plots  which  they  work  up,  out  of  facts  given 
them  by  these  officers.  In  my  own  experience  I  have 
been,  indeed  (at  one  time  especially,  when  it  seemed  to  me 
as  if  all  the  scribblers  had  gone  mad  upon  sensation  tales), 
harassed  arid  vexed  by  what  we  would  now  term  "  inter- 
views/' fishing  from  me  the  issues  of  this  or  that  experi- 
ence. It  was  my  purpose,  to  which  I  shall  adhere,  of 
course,  to  give  publicity  to  not  a  line  in  these  narratives 
which  may  not  properly  fall  under  the  eye  of  the  most 
fastidious  or  the  most  innocent  child.  Nevertheless,  such 
is  the  course  of  life  the  detective  is  obliged  to  lead,  finding 
himself  frequently  among  the  vilest  characters,  —  thieves, 
gamblers,  highway  robbers,  unfortunate  and  lost  women, 
and  wretches  too  low  and  vile  to  be  named  here,  even 
by  the  crimes  or  base  offences  which  they  commit,  —  that 
it  is  almost  impossible  to  give  the  full  history  of  any- 
thing,-with  all  the  incidents  of  a  nature  interesting  (in 
some  respects)  which  may  have  attended  it.  The  scenes 
which  occur  in  New  York,  for  example,  in  one  day,  if 
gathered  into  a  book,  such  as  the  regular  police  force  and 
the  detectives  might  furnish,  would  astound  the  uniniti- 
ated ;  and  were  they  recited  in  all  their  details,  would, 
many  of  them,  horrify  and  disgust,  as  well  as  "  astound/' 
the  reader.  At  this  writing  there  are  crowding  upon  my 
memory  many  occurrences  in  my  life,  that  I  have  been 
called  to  take  a  part  in,  which  would  hardly  be  fit  for 
these  pages,  in  view  of  the  extreme  immorality  that 
generated  them,  or  follows  in  their  trail,  which  yet  have 
thuir  romantic  side.  Most  of  these  affairs,  to  which  I  now 
especially  refer,  relate  to  the  life  of  fallen  women,  their 
first  enticements  from  the  path  of  virtue,  their  utter  ruin, 
or  their  final  rescue.  But  it  were  better  that  the  pub- 
lic remain  ignorant  of  these  things  as  far  forth  as  possi- 
ble, than  to  be  well  informed.  Yet  the  eye  of  sympathy 
12  8* 


194  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

cannot  but  fill  with  tears  of  pity  over  the  ruined  and 
wronged  ;  and  as  I  write,  I  feel  a  strong  impulse  to  go 
aside  from  my  original  intention  in  these  tales,  and  mingle 
with  them  recitals  of  horrible  personal  wrongs  suffered, 
aud  the  lives  of  infamy  led  by  many  females,  whom  better 
surroundings  than  they  enjoyed,  or  more  benevolence  and 
kindness  than  they  received,  might  have  saved,  and  ele- 
vated to  places  as  comparatively  dignified  in  the  world  as 
the  position  they  now  occupy  is  base  and  degraded. 

"  Society,"  it  is  true,  as  a  great  philosopher  has  aj^tly 
said,  "  creates,  for  the  most  part,  the  crimes  which  it  pun- 
ishes;" and  though  the  detective,  in  the  pursuit  of  his 
calling,  is  apt  to  become  merciless  towards  the  really  guil- 
ty, and  to  condemn  them  outright,  —  declaring  that  they 
could,  if  they  would,  do  better,  —  he  knows  that  it  would, 
a  thousand  times,  seem  that  the  very  "  conspiracy  of  cir- 
cumstances "  irresistibly  impels  men  on  to  the  commission 
of  crimes,  and  in  his  reason  he  is  more  lenient  towards  his 
fellow-men  than  his  profession  permits  him  to  be  in  prac- 
tice. But  there  are  villains  in  the  world  who  seem  to 
combine  with  base  desires  and  notions  a  persistency  in 
the  expression  of  them  which  never  wearies.  They  pur- 
sue their  base  objects  with  a  tirelessness  which  would  bo 
most  admirable  in  a  good  cause.  Indeed,  virtue,  save  as 
exemplified  in  the  characters  of  a  few  great  souls,  grows 
weary  and  careless,  and  turns  almost  to  vice,  long  before 
the  perseverance  of  these  villains  would  turn  from  ita 
course  of  wrong.  There  seems  to  be  a  romantic  impulse 
for  some  in  the  very  trials  that  beset  the  path  of  crime* 
The  more  hair-breadth  escapes  to  be  made,  tho  more 
•eagerly  do  these  villains  seem  to  enter  upon  their  course. 
But  I  must  not  stop  to  moralize  farther  here.  Unwilling 
to  recite  any  tale  of  my  own  experience  of  the  kind  to  which 
I  have  alluded,  as  related  to  the  rescuing  of  intended  fe- 
male victims  from  the  snares  of  the  despoiler,  which  now 
comes  to  my  mind,  I  will  recall,  as  clearly  as  I  can,  the 
story  of  a  brother  detective.  I  was  coming  from  Buffalo, 


MY  FRIEND'S   NARRATIVE. 

in  13.~9,  and  chanced  to  enter  the  car  in  which  lie  was 
soatod,  on  Ills  way  to  New  York,  from  a  successful  profes- 
sional mission  at  the  further  West,  and  fortunately  found 
a  seat  with  him  in  the  same  chair.  We  occupied  our  time 
mostly  as  detectives,  when  travelling  together,  are  apt  to, 
in  the  narration  of  our  professional  experiences ;  and  let 
me  say  here,  that  of  all  u  story-tellers,"  the  best  1  have 
ever  listened  to  are  detectives, — the  most  "  apt  schol- 
ars "  usually  of  human  nature, — and  what  is  more,  they 
always  have  truths  enough  of  a  startling  kind  to  tell,  to 
be  under  no  necessity  of  "  drawing  on  the  imagination." 

Thus  ran  his  story  of  "  Hattie  Newberry :  " — I  may  get 
places  and  names,  in  some  particulars,  not  exactly  correct. 
1  merely  wish  to  present  the  substance ;  and  I  remember 
it  more  particularly,  because  the  case  he  cited  was  in  so 
many  respects  like  one  of  mine,  which,  however,  had 
features  which  would  be  unfit  for  display  in  these  pages. 
But  to  the  narrative. 

My  friend  said,  that  once  on  his  way  from  Vermont, 
he  took  the  cars  at  Proctors ville,  I  believe,  below  Rutland, 
coming  south ;  that  he  had  not  been  long  on  the  cars  be- 
fore he  observed  a  couple  of  men  whom,  by  their  "  flashy  " 
dress,  and  certain  signs  unmistakable  by  the  "  initiated," 
he  knew  to  be  either  New  York  or  Boston  cutthroats  of 
some  sort.  He  thought  he  had  encountered  them  some- 
where before ;  and  as  he  was  on  a  peculiar  mission,  con- 
nected with  the  subject-matter  of  which  these  very  men 
m'ght  be,  he  kept  his  eye  on  them,  watching  their  man- 
ners with  each  other.  He  discovered  that  they  had  some* 
iniquity  on  hand,  as  he  thought,  or  were  very  glcesome 
over  some  already  secured  success,  or  something  of  tlie 
kind.  He  observed,  too,  that  they  frequently  turned  their 
attention  to  a  young  lady  who  was  sitting  alone  in  the 
front  seat  of  the  car,  by  the  door,  near  the  stove  ;  and  by 
aaid  by  these  fellows  got  up,  and  went  forward  to  her,  and 
commenced  talking,  and  it  was  evident  from  her  manner 
that  she  had  seen  them  before,  and  that  she  wished  to 


196  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

avoid  them.  They  tried  to  affect  a  familiarity  with  her, 
offered  her  something  to  drink  which  they  carried  in 
fhusks,  and  so  conducted,  in  short,  as  to  attract  the  atten- 
tion of  the  car  full  of  passengers,  who  seemed  disgusted 
with  their  movements.  It  was  evident  to  my  friend  that 
something  was  wrong;  and  eventually,  as  the  cars  stopped 
at  Bellows'  Falls  for  a  change  of  passengers  to  another 
train  for  those  going  down,  my  friend  caught  a  glimpse 
of  the  young  lady's  face,  which  lie  had  not  seen  before, 
sitting,  as  he  was,  some  distance  behind  her,  and  at  once 
he  reflected  that  he  had  seen  her  somewhere,  and  ought 
to  know  her.  She  was  startlingly  beautiful,  not  only  in 
the  regularity  of  her  features,  but  in  the  expression  of  her 
face  —  "the  most  beautiful  being  I  ever  saw  in  all  my 
travels,"  to  use  his  own  declaration.  He  felt  a  great  in- 
terest in  her;  and  now  that  he  had  seen  her  pure,  beautiful 
face,  he  understood  well  enough  that  the  two  villains  had 
no  proper  acquaintance  with  her;  that  they  were  only  ha- 
rassing her,  and  had  some  low  design  regarding  her.  The 
cars  waited  at  the  Falls  for  some  fifteen  minutes  before 
the  other  train  would  come  in,  and  my  friend,  leaving  the 
gentlemen's  room,  wherein  the  two  men  in  question  were, 
among  others,  partaking  of  refreshments,  and  "  giggling  " 
over  their  pretty  designs,  and  talking  about  "  her,"  "  that 
bully  gal,"  etc.,  and  smacking  their  lips  with  evident  do- 
light  over  some  contemplated  victory,  —  he  sauntered  into 
the  ladies'  room,  and  proceeded  towards  the  young  lady, 
who  arose,  moved  towards  him,  and  giving  him  her  hand, 
called  him  by  name.  He  was  astonished  as  well  as  de- 
lighted that  she  knew  him. 

"  But,  miss,  I  am  sorry  I  cannot  call  you  byname.  I 
think  I  must  have  known  you,"  said  he. 

"  Why,  then,"  she  replied,  "you  have  forgotten  'little 
Ilattie  Newberry,' whom  you  used  to  dance  so  much  on 
your  knees,  along  with  your  Jane." 

"  0,  no,  I've  not,"  said  he,  grasping  her  hand,  and  shak- 
ing it  heartily,  but  tenderly,  for  the  tears  came  into  his 


TENDER  MEMOEIES.  197 

eyes ;  for  his  Jane,  to  whom  Miss  Hattie  referred,  was  dead, 
and  he  called  to  mind  how  dearly  she  loved  "  little  Hattie." 
Ten  years  had  passed  since  he  had  seen  Hattie.  She  was 
then  a  "  wee  bit  of  a  thing"  of  her  age,  and  she  was  not 
very  large  now,  though  grown  to  full  womanhood,  as  ex- 
quisitely moulded  in  form  as  she  was  beautiful  of  face. 
My  friend  had  married  a  Vermont  girl,  he  himself  being  a 
native  of  New  Jersey.  The  illness  of  his  wife  had  led 
them  to  remove  to  a  little  town  somewhere  above  Rut- 
land,—  New  Haven,  I  believe,  but  may  be  that  is  not  it, 
—  for  a  summer,  in  which  place  he  had  first  known  Hattie, 
when  but  a  child  of  six  years  of  age.  His  little  daughter 
Jane  was  just  her  age,  having  been  born  on  the  very  same 
day  that  she  was,  and  the  two  little  creatures,  just  the  op- 
posites,  however,  in  complexion,  color  of  hair  and  eyes, 
and  quite  unlike  in  all  respects,  fell  into  the  warmest 
mutual  friendship.  "  They  had  not  a  single  taste  alike," 
said  he.  "  Jane  was  a  great  romp,  loved  to  be  out  in  the 
stables  with  the  horses  and  cows,  was  full  of  boisterous 
life ;  "  but  Hattie  was  as  mild  as  her  own  blue  eyes,  and 
as  delicate  as  her  fine,  glossy  hair.  "  It  was  a  strange  af- 
fection these  children  had  for  each  other,"  he  said ;  "  very 
beautiful,  and  I  used  to  be  constantly  with  them  when 
there."  He  used  to  spend  a  month  or  so  of  each  summer 
there,  while  the  wife  staid  from  the  last  of  May,  he  said, 
into  October.  For  three  years  his  wife  made  the  little 
town  her  summer  home,  and  these  children  grew  more 
and  more  together.  Ten  years  had  gone,  and  Hattie  was 
now  in  her  nineteenth  year,  —  a  beautiful  woman,  into 
whose  countenance  her  advanced  years  had  thrown  just 
enough  of  spirit  to  make  her  interesting,  —  with  an  air  of 
sweet,  just  ripe  maturity  about  her,  which  gave  my  friend 
an  inkling  of  what  the  two  villains  were  pursuing  her 
for.  Pretty  soon  my  friend  introduced  the  subject  of 
her  "  friends,"  —  her  two  "  fellow-travellers,"  —  and  she 
shrugged  her  shoulders  with  an  expression  of  mingled 
disgust  and  dread,  and  said,  "  You  ar«  going  down  ?  " 


198  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

"Yea." 

"  0, 1  am  so  glad,  for  you'll  be  company  for  me,  and  keep 
those  mean  men  away  from  me  —  won't  you  ?  " 

"Why,  certainly.     Where  did  you  meet  them  first?" 

"  They  came  on  at  Rutland,  I  think,  and  the  impudent 
fellows  have  tried  to  talk  with  me  all  the  way  down.  At 
first  I  said  a  few  words  to  them,  and  told  them  I  was 
going  to  New  York,  and  they've  left  their  seats  several 
times,  and  come  forward  to  me." 

"  Yes,  I've  noticed  them,"  said  my  friend,  "  and  that's 
why  I  came  in  here,  not  expecting  to  find  Hattie  New- 
berry,  but  sure  that  you,  whoever  you  are,  were  being 
persecuted  by  those  villains,  and  needed  protection." 

"  O,  you  are  so  good,"  said  she,  "  and  I  shall  be  so  glad 
to  go  with  you.  I  did  not  know  what  to  do,  but  I  had 
thought  that  if  they  got  into  the  same  cars  with  me  on 
the  next  train,  that  I  would  speak  to  the  conductor  about 
them,  or  go  out  into  another  car.  They  had  the  impudence 
to  ask  me  to  take  some  liquor  with  them,  and  I  do  not 
think  they  were  drunk." 

Their  conversation  had  proceeded  to  this  point,  when 
into  the  ladies  room  boisterously  came  the  two  men. 
"  Here's  the  darling,"  said  one,  approaching  her,  bringing 
cakes,  etc.,  in  their  hands.  "  And  you  must  take  something 
with  us."  She  declined,  and  turned  her  face  away,  when 
my  friend  said  to  them,  "She  doesn't  want  anything  — 
don't  trouble  her." 

"  Yes,  she  does,  too,"  said  one,  and  the  larger  of  the 
men  ;  "  and  she  .mustn't  be  bashful  —  must  take  it.  See 
here,  sis,"  said  he,  and  placed  his  hand  familiarly  on  her 
shoulder  to  turn  her  around ;  at  which  she  shuddered,  and 
gave  my  friend  such  a  look  that  he  couldn't  control  him- 
self, "  if  'twas  in  the  ladies'  room,"  and  dealt  the  fellow 
such  a  blow  in  the  face  with  his  brawny  arm  —  for  though 
he  was  not  very  large,  he  was  a  Hercules  in  strength,  and 
as  skilful  with  his  fists  as  a  prize-fighter — as  stretr-hed 
him  flat  upon  the  floor. 


PACIFIC   RESULTS   OF  FORCE.  201 

"  This  young  lady  is  under  my  protection,  and  if  you 
harass  her  any  more,  I'll  break  your  head,"  said  he,  as 
the  scamp  "  gathered  "  himself  up,  and  looked  for  an  inr 
stant  at  my  friend,  perceiving  then,  perhaps,  that  the  plain- 
looking  man,  whom  he  had  quite  likely  taken  for  a  "  com- 
mon country  fellow,"  was  something  of  a  genius  in  the  art 
of  self-defence,  as  well  as  that  of  offence,  for  my  friend 
was  on  his  "  pose,"  ready  to  re'sist  the  attacks  of  the 
two. 

The  scamps  almost  instantly  decamped,  and  about  this 
time  the  expected  train  arrived,  and  my  friend  led  Hattie 
to  a  car.  Into  the  same  the  two  men  came  ;  but  my  friend. 
rising,  and  looking  about  at  them  as  they  passed  back,  and 
they  perceiving  him,  they  said  something  to  each  other, 
and  turned  about,  and  went  into  a  forward  car.  My  friend 
hoped  that  that  was  the  last  of  them ;  but  at  several  stop- 
ping-places on  the  road,  one  of  them  —  not  the  one  who 
got  the  blow  —  would  saunter  through  their  car,  as  if  look- 
ing for  some  new  in-comer,  but  evidently  to  feast  his  eyes 
on  Hattie's  beauty, —  so  my  friend  thought. 

After  being  well  seated  in  the  cars,  my  friend  called  to 
mind,  that,  not  long  before,  his  wife  had  heard  from  some 
of  the  relatives  in  Hattie's  native  village,  with  whom  she 
kept  up  an  occasional  correspondence,  that  Hattie  New- 
berry  was  engaged  to  a  young  man  by  the  name  of  Dwight 
Phelps,  a  member  of  a  quite  wealthy  family  in  that  place; 
and  he  wondered  if  Hattie  was  going  to  New  York  to  get 
"  fixed  up  "  for  the  marriage,  for  he  knew  that  she  had  some 
relatives  there  somewhere,  and  his  curiosity  led  him  to  in- 
quire if  she  was  going  to  stay  Jong  in  New  York. 

"  Yes,  perhaps  so.  I  am  going  with  my  cousin  Charlotte, 
—  going  to  work  in  the  same  store  with  her.  She's  been 
trying  to  have  me  come  for  a  long  time,  and  at  last  I've 
made  up  my  mind  to  go."  Haltie's  parents  were  poor  peo- 
ple ;  industrious  and  respectable,  but  with  quite  a  large 
family  ;  and  Mr.  Newberry  himself,  never  a  very  "  touch  " 
man,  as  they  express  it  in  Vermont,  and  ill  a  good  deal, 


202  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

they  had  hard  work  enough  to  make  ends  meet,  and  send 
the  children  to  school,  and  all  that. 

"  O,  so  you  are  going  to  live  in  New  York  !  How's  that? 
Let  me  see  ;  it  seems  to  me  that  somebody  wrote  to  my  wifo 
a  few  weeks  ago,  that  you  and  young  D wight  Phelps  were  to 
be  married  ;  and  so  I  supposed  you'd  always  stay  up  there/' 

flattie  blushed,  and  replied,  "  0,  there  was  such  a  ru- 
mor ;  but  that's  all  ove'r  now."  She  tried  to  be  cheerful, 
but  a  sigh,  which  did  not  escape  my  friend's  ear,  and  a  sad 
look,  for  an  instant,  which  did  not  escape  his  eye,  revealed 
to  him  that  something  had  gone  wrong  with  her ;  and  he 
finally  found,  on  joking  her  a  little  about  the  matter,  kindly, 
that  young  Phelps's  father,  who  was  a  sort  of  a  miser, 
was  in  the  way :  that  he  wanted  his  son  to  marry  some 
rich  girl,  or  not  a  poor  one  in  money,  at  least,  however 
poor  she  might  otherwise  be ;  and  the  young  man  was  in 
his  father's  hands,  so  far  as  pecuniary  means  were  con- 
cerned, and  would  not  be  independent  enough  to  think  of 
marrying  soon.  The  old  man  Phelps  had  threatened  to 
disinherit  him  if  he  married  against  his  will ;  and  she  hail 
determined  to  not  make  difficulty  in  the  family,  and  was 
on  her  way  to  New  York,  at  her  cousin's  solicitation,  to 
go  to  work  where  she  could  earn  something,  and  help  her 
father  and  mother  support  the  family.  The  subject  was 
a  painful  one  for  Hattie  to  descant  upon,  and  my  friend 
addressed  himself  to  other  matters  of  conversation.  Hut- 
tie  informed  him  that  her  cousin,  Charlotte  Keeney,  Avas 
the  chief  clerk  in  a  confectioner's  establishment,  with  a 
neat  restaurant  attached,  in  Sixth  Avenue,  near  Twelfth 
Street,  New  York,  the  proprietor  of  which  was  a  certain  Mr. 

Henry (Brown,  for  a  name)  —  a  popular,  thriving  busi- 

cess  man,  of  the  rigid  school  of  morals;  just,  generous, 
and  kindly  in  manners,  but  as  fixed  in  his  opinions,  and  as 
relentless  against  evil-doers,  and  as  unforgiving  of  actual 
moral  delinquencies,  as  if  he  had  been  carved  out  of  the 
"  ribs  "  of  the  Mayflower  —  (before  she  became  a  slave- 
ship)  ;  a  eort  of  wooden-headed  man  in  all  matters  of  moi> 


INCIDENT   AT  HARTFORD,   CONN.  203 

als ;  a  descendant  of  the  Puritan  stock.  This  fact  light- 
ened my  friend's  regret  that  Hattie  had  resolved  to  go  to 
the  city  to  live,  for  he  chanced  to  know  Mr.  Brown's  repu- 
tation, otherwise  he  would  have  felt  it  his  duty  to  say 
more  to  her  of  the  perils  and  trials  of  city  life  than  he 
did.  He  said,  as  he  looked  upon  her  wonderful  beauty, 
and  thought  how  many  girls,  almost  as  beautiful,  had  found 
city  life  full  of  thorns ;  had  borne  sad  trials,  and  suffered 
deathly  sorrows,  principally  through  the  fact  of  their  ex- 
quisite beauty  ;  and  reflected,  too,  that  she  was  going  there 
with  a  wound  upon  her  heart,  and  therefore  less  likely  to 
resist  the  city's  temptations, — his  heart  quite  overcame 
him,  and  he  wanted  to  take  her  directly  into  his  own  fam- 
ily, and  as  a  father  protect  her. 

Along  the  route,  as  I  have  observed  before,  he  noticed 
the  impertinence  of  the  two  men,  constantly  seeking  to  get 
a  sight  at  Hattie  whenever  the  cars  stopped.  My  friend 
(call  him  Frederick  Daniels)  was  greatly  annoyed  by  this  ; 
but  it  gave  him  occasion  to  descant  to  Hattie  upon  the 
character  of  certain  heartless  beings  she  might  meet  with 
in  the  city,  and  to  advise  her  touching  the  companion- 
ships she  might  make.  But  Hattie  thought  that  in  her 
cousin  Charlotte's  riper  experience  she  should  find  suffi- 
cient protection,  and  she  seemed  to  look  upon  Charlotte  as 
a  wonder  of  wisdom  as  well  as  of  goodness ;  and  Mr.  Dan- 
iels, reflecting  that  Mr.  Brown's  must  be  as  safe  a  place 
as  any  for  a  young  lady,  probably  contented  himself  with 
asking  Hattie  to  visit  his  family  as  often  as  she  could ;  but 
he  lived  far  up  town,  and  on  the  other  side  of  the  city 
from  Mr.  Brown's,  so  it  was  not  likely  that  she  could  find 
time,  save  on  Sundays,  and  then  she  would  be  obliged  to 
walk  much  to  get  to  his  house.  But  she  promised  him  to 
visit  his  family  when  she  could,  and  to  always  come  to  him 
if  she  needed  aid  or  protection  of  any  kind.  The  journey 
was  passed  pleasantly  on  to  New  York,  without  notable 
incident,  save  that  at  Hartford,  where  the  cars  were  de- 
layed for  some  time  on  account  of  an  accident  which  had 


204  KNOTS    UNTIED. 

occurred  on  the  road  some  miles  below :  the  two  men 
were  met  by  a  man  of  the  same  character  with  them,  evi- 
dently, and  who  gave  them  something  to  drink  from  his 
flask,  theirs  being  apparently  empty,  and  which  fired  one 
of  them  into  unusual  impudence,  which  made  him  annoy- 
ing to  Hattie  and  Mr.  Daniels — breaking  in  at  times  into 
the  ladies'  sitting-room  in  the  depot,  whither  they  had 
gone,  with  other  passengers,  for  "  sake  of  change  "  from  tl»e 
cars.  Mr.  Daniels,  it  chanced,  knew  this  third  man,  who 
eeemed  to  have  no  memory  that  he  had  ever  run  across 
Mr.  D.  before ;  and  knowing  him,  Mr.  D.  was  not  at  a  loss 
where  to  place  them.  He  told  Hattie  that  they  were  gam- 
blers, and  worse ;  besides,  probably  being  pickpockets. 
She,  in  her  innocence,  was  surprised  to  learn  that  so  well- 
dressed  men  as  these  could  be  so  low  in  character,  and 
Mr.  D.  felt  that  she  almost  questioned  his  judgment.  So, 
hoping  to  impress  her  with  the  danger  of  "  trusting  to 
appearances,"  in  a  great  city  especially,  he  told  her  such 
tales  about  such  elegantly-dressed  scoundrels  as  came  into 
his  mind  ;  and  filled  up  the  time  of  the  journey  with  such 
lessons  as  he  thought  might  be  of  use  to  Hattie,  and  put 
her  on  her  guard  against  evil. 

Mr.  Daniels  chanced  to  observe  that  the  third  villain 
took  passage  with  the  other  two  from  Hartford,  and  ho 
saw  that  this  man  had  become  more  interested,  if  possible, 
in  Hattie  than  the  other  two,  if  anything  was  to  be  judged 
by  the  more  extreme  eagerness  with  which  he  eyed  her. 
The  third  villain,  whose  name  or  alias  was,  as  Mr.  D. 
knew,  "  Harland,"  was  a  more  accomplished  man  than  tlie 
rest.  He  hailed  from  Meriden,  Conn.,  where  it  was  said 
he  was  quite  respectably  related,  and  had  at  one  time 
occupied  a  respectable  business  position  in  New  York ; 
but  turning  to  sporting,  he  at  last  got  involved,  and  op- 
erated some  adroit  forgeries,  and  had  been  connected  with 
a  swindling  bogus  lottery.  It  was  in  the  detection  and 
breaking  up  of  this  concern  that  my  friend  Daniels  had 
come  across  Harlaud.  This  man  had  lost  his  best  old 


PERSEVERING   VILLAINS.  205 

friends,  who  discarded  him  outright,  he  being  obliged  to 
take  up  with  a  low  class  of  society ;  yet  there  was  a  natu- 
ral, or  educated  pride  in  him,  which  probably  suffered 
much  from  his  debasement,  and  which  prompted  him  to 
make  tools  of  these  beings,  whom  he  regarded,  notwith- 
standing his  fraternizing  with  them,  as  inferior  beings. 
Mr.  Daniels  felt  a  renewed  interest  for  Hattie  when  he 
considered  this  adroit  man ;  and  the  fear  came  over  him 
that  the  rascal  would,  in  some  way,  manage  to  make  him- 
self felt  by  her  to  her  sorrow ;  and  he  told  Hattie  that  tlie 
fellow  would  as  likely  as  not  seek  her  out  in  her  employ- 
ment, and  that  the  place  she  was  going  to,  being  open  to 
the  public,  he  would  doubtless  find  her  out;  but  that  if 
he  did,  she  must  not  allow  him  to  make  her  acquaintance, 
beyond  what  her  necessity  as  a  clerk  would  demand  of 
her  allowing.  She  promised  him  to  observe  his  advice. 
My  friend,  with  his  usual  shrewdness,  had  preconceived  that 
these  villains  would  endeavor  to  follow  Hattie,  to  see  where 
she  went  on  her  arrival  in  New  York ;  and  when  the  pas- 
sengers alighted  from  the  cars,  he  was  not  surprised  to 
find  these  men  near  him,  watching  his  movements ;  and  to 
thwart  them,  he  took  Hattie  and  her  trunk,  by  coach,  to  the 
hotel,  intending,  as  he  did,  to  soon  after  take  her  to  her  place 
of  designation  on  Sixth  Avenue,  and  to  send  from  there 
some  trusty  man  for  her  trunk.^  The  scoundrels  followed  in 
another  coach,  and  kept  close  behind  him,  alighted  at  the 
same  hotel,  and  registered  their  names  just  below  his  and 
Hattie's.  "  Fred.  Harland,"  "  Edward  Rowe,"  and  "  Philip 
Jas.  McHenry,"  were  the  entries,  in  the  bold  and  elegant 
hand  of  Harland.  Mr.  Daniels  procured  a  room  for  him- 
self and  one  for  Hattie,  who  began  now  to  see  the  desperate 
course  which  these  men  would  pursue,  and  was  very  wil- 
ling to  be  guided  by  Daniels,  to  avoid  being  followed  by 
these  fellows.  Mr.  Daniels,  not  being  willing  to  be  kept 
close  prisoner  there  by  these  men, — and  the  night  was  com- 
ing on,  too,  and  he  wished  to  be  at  home,  —  went  out.  to  a 
trusty  friend's  store,  advised  him  of  what  was  going  ->n, 


206  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

and  a^ed  him  to  allow  one  of  his  lady  clerks,  about  Ilattie's 
size,  to  go  to  the  hotel  parlor,  the  gentleman  to  follow 
soon ;  and  the  girl,  "  for  the  fun  of  the  thing,  if  nothing 
more,"  as  she  giddily  said,  acquiescing,  made  entry  to  the 
hotel  parlor,  whence  Mr.  Daniels  took  her  to  Hattie's  room, 
and  caused  her  to  assume  Hattie's  hat  and  shawl,  in  ex- 
change for  which  Hattie  took  hers;  and  after  the  merchant 
had  come  over  to  the  hotel,  and  had  been  made  acquainted 
with  Hattie,  Mr.  Daniels  took  the  young  lady,  and  pro- 
ceeded through  the  hall  to  the  street;  and  acting  as  if 
utterly  oblivious  or  careless  of  the  existence  of  these  fel- 
lows, passed  on,  with  his  thickly-veiled  charge  upon  his 
arm,  down  the  street. '  In  crossing  to  the  opposite  side,  at 
no  great  distance  from  the  hotel,  he  had  opportunity  to 
look  back  without  being  suspected,  and  saw  Harland,  and 
the  man  "  Rowe  "  (the  one  whom  he  had  knocked  down  at 
Bellows'  Falls),  following  slowly,  but  with  eyes  bent  upon 
him.  He  would  have  been  better  satisfied  had  he  seen  the 
third  following  him.  The  young  lady  liked  the  sport,  and 
Daniels  led  the  fellows  quite  a  chase,  and  finally  brought 
about  to  the-  store  of  his  friend,  trusting  that  the  latter's 
sagacity  had  enabled  him  meanwhile  to  leave  the  hotel 
•with  Hattie,  and  take  her  to  Mr.  Brown's,  on  Sixth  Avenue. 
He  had  told  Hattie  to  take  the  key  of  her  room  with  her, 
and  give  it  to  his  friend.  The  surprise  of  the  scamps  in 
seeing  Mr.  Daniels  come  away  from  this  store,  and  leave 
"  Hattie  "  there,  must  have  been  considerable.  Mr.  D. 
went  back  to  the  hotel,  and  to  his  joy  found  that  the  mer- 
chant had  gone  with  the  real  Hattie  ;  and  he  withdrew  to 
the  store  again,  and  awaited  his  return,  which  he  made  in 
good  time.  It  was  then  arranged  that  the  porter  of  the 
store  should  be  sent  for  Hattie's  trunk,  and  it  be  brought 
there.  Mr.  D.  went  with  the  porter,  paid  the  bills,  and 
took  the  trunk,  brought  it  to  the  store,  whence  the  next 
day  it  was  sent  to  Hattie's  new  home,  and  Mr.  D.  then 
betook  himself  to  his  own  home,  —  feeling  that  his  strata- 
gem had  saved  Hattie  much  annoyance  in  the  future, 


A  PAINFUL   SURPRISE.  207 

and  perhaps  much  suffering.  The  next  day  the  ladies  re- 
exchanged,  through  the  porter,  their  hat-*  and  shawls,  and 
Mr.  Daniels,  being  called  away  from  the  city  soon  on  busi- 
ness, and  being  exceedingly  occupied  for  some  two  months 
and  over,  had  almost  lost  memory  of  Hattie  altogether. 
She,  however,  called  at  his  house  once  in  the  mean  while, 
in  his  absence  from  home,  and  had  a  cheerful  "  reunion  " 
with  the  wife  and  the  family.  Mrs.  Daniels  took  the  great- 
est interest  in  her,  and  regarded  her  beauty  as  something 
"  almost  superhuman,"  she  said.  She  knew  that  as  a  child 
she  bade  fair  to  become  a  beautiful  woman ;  but  the  change 
had  been  so  great  in  her  in  the  last  eight  years  (for  Mrs. 
Daniels  had  seen  her  once  since  her  husband  had.  be- 
fore the  latter's  late  meeting  with  her),  that  she  would 
not  have  known  her  at  first,  had  she  not  given  her  her 
name,  and  then  could  barely  recognize  that  it  was  she. 

Mrs.  Daniels  gladly  accepted  the  husband's  invitation  to 
"  go  down  and  call  on  Hattie  Newberry,"  which  they  did  ; 
and  on  entering  the  confectioner's  shop,  what  was  Mr.  Dan- 
iels's  astonishment  and  horror,  on  discovering  there  both 
Harland  and  McHenry,  in  cheery  conversation  with  one 
of  the  girls,  whom  he  took,  and  who  so  proved,  to  be  Char- 
lotte Keeney,  Hattie's  cousin  !  Evidently  they  were  old 
acquaintances  of  hers.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Daniels  passed  by 
them,  on  to  where  they  discovered  Hattie,  who  saluted 
them  cordially,  asked  them  into  the  little  rear  saloon,  and 
called  in  her  employer,  Mr.  Brown,  to  whom  she  presented 
them  as  old  friends,  who  "  used  to  live  in  Vermont."  They 
had  a  charming  visit  with  Hattie,  who  was  released  from 
her  engagements  by  her  kind  employer,  in  order  to  enter- 
tain them,  and  Mr.  Brown  sent  in  confections  and  "  goodies  ?> 
for  them  to  carry  back  to  their  family,  and  gave  them  much 
of  his  attention  besides.  Mr.  Daniels  was  indignant  to  find 
those  two  men  there ;  but  he  knew  not  precisely  what  to 
do".  Had  they  hunted  out  Hattie,  or  were  they  old  ac- 
quaintances of  Charlotte,  and  had  found  Hattie  there  by 
accident  when  calling  on  the  former?  Were  they  time-old 


208  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

customers  of  the  place,  or  recent  comers  ?  These  and  such 
like  questions  occupied  his  mind.  He  wanted  to  speak  to 
Mr.  Brown,  and  tell  him  of  the  character  of  these  men  ;  but 
they  might  be  good  customers,  —  certainly  they  were  lav- 
ish with  their  money  that  night,  —  and  it  was  clear  that 
Charlotte  liked  them  ;  indeed  she  seemed  fond  of  them, 
and  Mr.  Daniels  hesitated  as  to  what  to  do,  for  fear  of 
giving  offence.  He  knew  the  reputation  of  Mr.  Brown,  to 
be  spre,  and  that  he  would  not  wish  his  clerks  to  be  on 
terms  of  friendship  with  such  villains,  if  he  knew  their 
true  character.  But  then  he,  Daniels,  was  a  comparative 
stranger  to  Mr.  Brown,  and  why  should  Brown  accept  his 
single  word  as  against  such  well-behaved  "  gentlemen," 
who  were  good  customers,  too.  Besides,  business  men, 
however  good  they  may  be  themselves,  exist  upon,  and 
make  their  money  out  of,  their  customers ;  and  whoever 
should  enter  upon  a  close  scrutiny  of  the  character  of  his 
patrons  in  Xew  York,  would  be  apt  to  find  nine  scamps  in 
every  ten  persons.  The  fact  is,  that  the  greed  for  money 
is  so  great  in  New  York,  and  all  over  the  country,  that  the 
best  men  come  to  be  as  polite  to  their  most  wicked  patrons 
and  customers,  as  to  those  of  high  and  noble  characters. 

Mr.  Daniels,  as  a  detective,  whose  business  it  is  to 
*  mind  other  people's  business "  in  some  respects,  felt 
more  keenly  than  most  men  feel  the  like,  the  propriety 
and  expediency  of  minding  his  own  business,  and  was 
cautious  in  his  proceedings  therefore.  He  made  up  his 
mind  to  say  nothing  to  any  one  except  Hattie,  at  first,  at 
least;  and  so,  when  she,  and  his  wife,  and  himself  were 
quite  alone  together,  he  spoke  to  her  of  these  men  as 
the  ones  whom  they  had  encountered  on  the  cars,  and 
whom  she  had  escaped.  What  was  not  his  astonishmci 
when  he  found  that  she  did  not  recognize  them  as  such 
It  appeared  that  Harland  was  an  old  friend  of  Charlotte, 
of  whom  Charlotte  had,  in  fact,  written  her  before  she 
came  on,  —  speaking  of  her  having  been,  the  night  before 
her  letter  was  dated,  to  the  theatre,  with  her  friend,  Mr. 


"GOOD   CUSTOMERS."  209 

Harland,  "a  very  fine,  spirited  gentleman/'  etc.,  whom 
Hattie  would  like,  she  thought.  Mr.  Daniels  had  not 
mentioned  the  names  of  these  men  to  Hattie  on  the  day 
of  her  escape  from  the  hotel.  It  had  not  occurred  to  him 
to  do  that ;  and  when,  in  the  course  of  a  week  or  two  after 
her  arrival  at  Mr.  Brown's,  Harland  called  on  Charlotte, 
who  received  him  joyfully,  and  after  a  while  presented 
him  in  warm  terms  to  Hattie,  she  of  course  did  not  recog- 
nize him  by  his  name,  though  she  thought  she'd  seen  him 
somewhere ;  but  she  reflected  that  on  her  way  to  her 
boarding-house  —  for  she  did  not  board  with  Charlotte 
—  she  saw  many  noticeable  men,  and  probably  had  encoun- 
tered him  somewhere  in  going  or  coming.  But  notwitl* 
standing  Mr.  Daniels's  assurance,  she  could  not  identify 
either  of  the  men  as  having  been  aboard  the  cars  that  day  ; 
and  it  was  evident  that  they  had  made  quite  a  pleasant 
impression  upon  her  mind.  They  had  been  there  quite 
often  ;  and  Mr.  Daniels,  from  what  he  saw  of  their  sly 
glances  towards  Hattie.  discovered  that  it  was  she,  rather 
than  Charlotte,  whom  they  came  most  to  see.  But  Mr. 
Daniels  was  not  willing  to  leave  without  making  some  fur- 
ther effort  in  Hattie's  behalf;  and  he  asked  her  to  call 
Charlotte  into  the  room,  to  see  him  and  his  wife,  while  Hat- 
tie  should  wait  upon  the  customers,  and  especially  these 
men.  He  thought  that  possibly  Hattie  might  yet  call 
them  to  mind  as  the  scamps  who  pursued  her  that  day. 

It  was  evident  to  him.  that  the  men  recognized  him,  and 
were  bound  to  stay  as  long  as  he  did,  and  entertain  Char- 
lotte. They  proved  themselves  u  good  customers  "  that 
night,  if  never  before ;  in  fact,  Hattie  confessed  that  she 
thought  they  had  bought  more  that  night  than  in  all  their 
calls  before.  She  went,  at  Mr.  Daniels's  request,  and  asked 
Charlotte  to  go  into  the  little  room  ;  and  Charlotte  said  she 
would  •'  soon."  The  men  heard  the  request,  and  it  was 
dear  that  they  meant  that  she  should  not  go,  and  so  they 
kept  chatting  on  ;  but  Hattie,  going  out  again,  and  evincing 
some  anxiety,  Charlotte  excused  herself  to  the  men,  and 


210  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

went,  not  however  till  Harland,  calling  her  back  after  she 
had  gone  a  few  steps  after  Hattie,  said  something  to  her. 
She  came  to  the  table  where  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Daniels  were 
sitting,  and  thanked  them  for  their  wish  to  see  her,  but 
said  they  must  excuse  her;  that  they  saw  how  occupied 
she  was,  and  that  Mr.  Brown,  though  a  kind,  generous 
man,  was  very  earnest  in  wishing  his  clerks  to  do  their 
full  duty,  and  not  lose  a  chance  to  trade.  She  hoped  they 
would  come  again,  and  find  her  more  at  leisure.  Of  course 
Mr.  Daniels  could  have  nothing  to  reply  to  this,  but  to 
thank  her,  etc.,  and  she  bowed  herself  away  pleasantly, 
and  so  Daniels  was  foiled  in  that  move ;  and  at  last,  con- 
tented himself  with  earnest  advice  to  Hattie  to  let  these 
men  alone,  to  avoid  them  all  she  could,  and  to  tell  Charlotte 
their  true  character,  and  that  they  were  the  men  who  per- 
secuted her  on  the  day  of  her  arrival.  Hattie  promised  to 
heed  Mr.  Daniels's  advice,  and  she  told  Charlotte  about  the 
men,  on  the  first  good  opportunity  that  she  had  ;  but  Char- 
lotte could  not  believe  it,  especially  as  Hattie  had  not  rec- 
ognized Harland  before,  and  confessed  that  she  could  not 
yet  call  him  to  mind.  "  But  Mr.  Daniels  cannot  be  mis- 
taken," said  she.  "  I  did  not  look  the  men  in  their  faces 
mudh.  I  avoided  them,  and  would  not  be  apt  to  remember 
them  in  other  dress,  and  coming  here  as  your  old  friends." 
But  Charlotte  would  not  be  persuaded,  and  believed  Mr. 
Daniels  mistaken.  Indeed,  she  finally  told  Hattie  that 
Hurland  said  he  had  seen  her  friend,  Mr.  Daniels,  some- 
where before  ;  couldn't  say  where ;  but  that  he  was  a  man 
of  poor  character  he  knew,  and  he  wondered  Hattie  al- 
lowed him  and  his  wife  to  call  on  her.  This,  Mr.  Daniels 
heard  long  after  from  Hattie's  lips.  That  night  Mr.  D. 
went  home  down-hearted,  feeling  that  he  had  failed  to  im- 
press Hattie  sufficiently  of  her  danger;  but  he  had  made 
her  promise  him,  that  if  she  ever  had  any  serious  trouble 
she  would  seek  his  aid,  and  that  she  would  call  on  him  and 
his  family,  whenever  she  cou.d  fnid  it  convenient  to  do  so. 
Time  went  on,  and  though  Mr.  Daaiels's  mind  frequently 


THE  INCORRUPTIBLE.  211 

reverted  to  Hattie,  yet  his  business  cares  did  not  allow 
him  to  visit  her.  He  made  up  his  mind  that  night  that 
the  wretches  intended  to  possess  themselves  of  her  in 
some  way,  and  that  they  would  carry  out  their  vile  pur- 
pose if  possible.  He  talked  with  Mrs.  Daniels  about  it. 
Such  beauty  as  Hattie's  would  not  fade  easily,  and  such  a 
prize  as  she  would  be  sought.  He  hoped  she'd  make  the 
acquaintance  of  some  good  man,  and  get  married,  and  thus 
be  saved  from  trouble ;  but  he  reflected  that  these  villains 
would  manage  to  keep  such  men  as  that  away  from  Tier. 
As  for  themselves,  even  if  either  of  them  was  moved  by 
her  beauty  to  love  her,  he  probably  then  had  a  half  dozen 
wives  somewhere  ;  and  would  prefer  her  as  mistress  rather 
than  wife,  even  if  he  were  unmarried.  Mrs.  Daniels  had 
no  fear  for  Hattie ;  which  consoled  Mr.  Daniels  somewhat. 
She  said  she  knew  that  such  a  girl  as  Hattie  could  take 
care  of  herself  as  against  the  seducers.  She  felt  in  her 
woman's  nature  that  there  was  something  in  Hattie's  com- 
position which  the  despoiler  could  not  corrupt,  and  which' 
would  be  her  protection ;  besides,  Hattie's  duties  required 
her  services  evenings,  and  these  men  had  not  much  op- 
portunity to  ply  their  villanous  arts.  Mr.  Daniels  deferred 
a  good  deal  to  his  wife's  judgment  in  this,  and  felt  more 
easy  —  and  time  wore  on. 

Three  or  four  more  months  had  passed,  and  one  night, 
just  as  Mr.  Daniels  had  returned  home,  there  was  a  violent 
ringing  of  his  door-bell,  which  he  answered  on  the  spot,  not 
having  yet  removed  his  overcoat.  The  messenger  had 
come  for  him,  with  imploring  word  from  Hattie  Newberry, 
that  he  should  at  once  come  to  the  Jefferson  Market  Sta- 
tion to  see  her.  She  was  in  trouble  :  charged  with  crime, 
and  was  almost  frantic  ;  had  been  rescued,  an  hour  before, 
from  the  North  River,  where  she  had  attempted  to  drown 
herself,  and  was  calling,  in  incoherent  terms,  his  name,  and 
much  which  they  could  not  make  out.  He  must  go  at 
once,  and  he  did,  with  a  willing  but  a  sad  heart.  He  De- 
volved all  sorts  of  possibilities  in  his  mind  as  he  accom- 
13  9 


212  KNOTS    UNTIED. 

panied  the  messenger,  and  arriving  at  the  station-house, 
found  there  poor  Hattie,  who,  recognizing  him,  rushed 
upon  him,  threw  her  arms  about  his  neck,  and  exclaimed, 
"  O,  if  I  had  but  minded  your  good  advice.  I  am  not 
guilty  !  not  guilty !  —  and  I  wanted  to  die."  "  No,  no,  Hat- 
tie,  you  are  not  guilty,"  he  replied  ;  "  no  matter  what  the 
charge  is,  you  are  not  guilty  of  any  crime."  At  this  point 
a  brother  detective  stepped  up,  one  of  Mr.  Daniels's  best 
friends.  His  clothes  were  still  wet,  and  Daniels  exclaimed, 
"  What,  was  it  you,  Montgomery,  that  rescued  my  child  here 
from  the  water?  God  bless  you  !  "  "  Yes,"  —  and  Mont- 
gomery, pulling  him  by  his  sleeve,  as  if  to  take  him  away, 
he  said  to  Hattie,  "  Be  calm,  Hattie,  you  are  my  child,  and 
nothing  shall  hurt  you  ;  excuse  me  a  moment,  I'll  be  right 
back."  "  Yes,  yes,"  interposed  Montgomery,  who  was  a 
splendid  officer,  and  greatly  respected  by  all  about  the 
station,  "1  assure  you  that  what  Mr.  Daniels  says  is 
right.  You  shall  not  be  harmed,  and  we'll  be  back 
"soon." 

Daniels  and  Montgomery  went  aside,  and  the  hitter  said, 
u  Tell  me  all  about  this  girl,  Daniels.  I  never  saw  such 
beauty.  I  thought  one  spell  she'd  drag  me  down,  but  I 
would  have  gone  under  willingly  to  save  her;  and  when 
she  called  your  name  I  was  glad,  for  I  knew  all  was  right 
.somehow  —  but  I  haven't  questioned  her  much;  indeed, 
she's  been  half  delirious  till  you  came  ;  but  I  see  her  eye 
is  getting  natural."  Montgomery  then  went  on  to  tell  him 
how  he  happened  to  be  down  near  the  wharf,  saw  a  well- 
dressed  girl  running  in  such  a  mad  way  as  to  arrest  his 
attention,  and  he  followed  her,  and  saw  her  plunge  off  the 
dock,  but  not  before  she  had  paused  a  second,  and  looked 
About,  when  he  caught  sight  of  her  wondrous  face.  His 
•first  thought  was,  that  she  was  some  unfortunate  of  the 
town,  who  had  resolved  to  end  her  unhappy  career ;  but 
he  stripped  off  his  outer  coat  and  boots,  and  ran  along 
some  logs  which  were  lying  in  the-  water,  and  reached  out 
•&  pole  to  her  which  he  had  caught  up.  As  she  rose,  puff- 


AN   ARCH-VILLAIN'S   TRICK.  215 

ing  and  struggling,  she  seized  it,  and  he  saw  that  the 
water  had  chilled  out  her  purpose  of  suicide;  and,  indeed, 
she  cried  for  help,  and  he  plunged  in,  finding  the  water 
deeper  than  he  thought,  and  had  a  hard  struggle  to  get 
out  with  her,  for  she  was  frantic,  and  grasped  his  arms  so 
that  he  could  hardly  use  them.  He  had  gotten  assistance 
and  a  carriage,  and  had  taken  her  to  the  station,  and 
quickly  after  arriving  there  had  encountered  an  officer, 
who  said  he  was  after  her ;  that  she  was  a  thief,  had  stolen 
a  diamond  ring  of  great  value,  "  and,  of  course,  lots  of 
other  things,"  as  he  said.  But  Montgomery  would  not 
give  her  up  till  Daniels  came,  after  hearing  her  call  for 
him.  This  was  all  that  Montgomery  knew  about  the 
matter. 

Dry  clothes  had  been  procured  for  Hattie,  and  she  had 
recovered  from  her  fright  a  little  when  Daniels  came. 
Daniels  told  Montgomery  all  about  her,  and  they  both  be- 
lieved her  innocent,  and  resolved  to  save  her.  The  charge 
was  surely  false,  they  said,  and  they  went  back  to  her, 
dismissed  those  about  her,  and  asked  her  to  tell  them  her 
trouble,  which,  in  her  plain,  simple  way  she  did.  She  had 
been  charged  by  Elarland  with  having  filched  from  him  a 
valuable  diamond  ring,  worth  three  hundred  dollars.  She 
had  denied  it;  and  Harland  had  asked  her  to  Jet  her  room 
be  searched,  and  she  had  willingly  done  so ;  and  in  com- 
pany with  an  officer,  she  had  gone  to  her  room  with  Char- 
lotte and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Brown,  and  allowed  the  search ; 
and  there,  to  her  consternation,  in  her  own  reticule, 
wrapped  up  in  a  little  white  paper,  was  found  the  very 
ring  Harland  had  described.  "  The  villain  slipped  it  in 
there  in  the  search  !  "  exclaimed  Daniels.  "  No,  no,"  said 
she,  "  Mr.  Brown  opened  the  box,  and  found  the  reticule, 
and  examined  it  himself.  Harland  did  not  touch  it.'' 
"  Did  he  examine  anything  ?  "  "  No,  he  didn't  touch 
anything,"  said  she.  "  Mr.  Brown  and  Mrs.  Brown  did 
the  searching  ;  he  looked  on."  "  Then,"  said  Montgomery, 
"  the  villain  had,  in  some  way,  got  the  ring  in  there.  lie 


21 G  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

knew  what  the  search  would  result  in,  —  felt  sure  of  his 
game." 

Mr.  Brown  was  convinced  of  the  girl's  guilt,  and  was 
going  to  discharge  her.  He  was  dreadfully  perplexed  by 
it,  for  he  had  thought  Ilattie  the  best  of  girls;  but  her 
guilt  was  so  apparent  to  him  as  to  excite  his  old  Puritan 
sense  of  justice.  Mercy  lost  its  hold  in  his  heart,  but  he 
consented,  at  Harland's  suggestion,  to  let  her  stay  a  day 
or  so  longer.  Harland  said,  that  now  he  had  got  his  ring 
he  did  not  care  to  punish  her;  that  he  presumed  she  had 
been  sorely  tempted  by  it,  for  she  had  seen  it  in  his  pos- 
session, and  he  knew  well  enough  when  she  took  it.  He 
thought  it  too  bad  to  not  give  her  another  trial;  but  Mr. 
Brown  would  have  no  thief  in  his  employ,  but  would  let 
her  stay  a  day  or  two,  —  but  not  to  work,  —  till  Harland 
could  get  her  a  place.  When  Daniels  and  Montgomery 
got  to  this  part  of  her  story,  they  could  account  for  the 
man's  villany ;  and  consulting  with  each  other  away  from 
Hattie,  concluded  to  send  at  once  for  Mrs.  Daniels,  lor 
they  saw  that  there  were  probably  things  which  Hattie 
would  prefer  to  tell  to  a  woman.  While  the  carriage  was 
gone  for  Mrs.  D.,  they  learned  further  of  Hattie's  story : 
that  she  partly  loved  Harland,  that  she  was  innocent  of 
the  theft,  and  somehow  suspected  him  of  having  planned 
to  destroy  her  character.  The  light  began  that  day  to 
open  upon  her  mind,  and  she  loathed  him ;  and  so  dreadful 
were  her  feelings,  and  so  deep  her  sense  of  wrong  at  Mr. 
Brown's  hands,  in  that  he  had  no  charity  for  her,  that, 
brooding  over  it  all,  and  thinking  what  a  horrible  story 
would  reach  her  home  about  her,  she  got  frenzied,  and 
resolved  to  put  an  end  to  her  life.  She  expected  Harland 
at  about  such  an  hour,  and  the  nearer  that  approached  the 
more  terrible  her  condition  seemed  to  be;  and  finally,  life 
neeming  unendurable  longer,  she  had  rushed  from  tlie 
house,  as  it  would  seem,  just  about  the  time  Harland  an  1 
the  officer  with  him  had  come.  This  would  account  for 
the  appearance  of  the  officer  whom  Montgomery  had  seen. 


A  SUDDEN  IMPRISONMENT.  217 

"  That  scamp  is  no  officer,"  exclaimed  Montgomery,  when 
he  came  to  hear  this,  for  he  was  the  same  man,  she  said, 
who  had  accompanied  Harland  on  the  day  of  the  search. 
"  I  thought  I  had  seen  him  before.  Do  you  go,  Daniels, 
and  meet  him,  for  he  may  know  me.  I  think  it  is  a  wretch 
by  the  name  of  Harry  Restell ;  and  if  it  is  he,  you'll  dis- 
cover a  slit  in  the  lobe  of  the  left  ear,  shaped  liked  an  in- 
verted '  V,'  and  if  you  notice  further,  you'll  see  a  slight 
inclination  of  the  head  to  the  left  side,  as  if  the  cords  of 
the  neck,  on  the  left  side,  were  a  little  shorter  than  on  the 
other,  and  stiff.  If  you  find  so  much,  make  his  acquaint- 
ance  pleasantly,  get  him  to  talk  with  you,  and  go  with  you 
about  the  cells,  and  without  ceremony  shut  him  in ;  call 
Badger  for  the  keys,  and  tell  him  I  told  you,  for  this  will 
end  that  game,  and  send  for  me  instantly.  I'll  fix  him. 
I  want  him."  Mr.  Daniels  went,  and  finding  Restell,  the 
man  whom  Montgomery  suspected,  was  adroit  enough  to 
accomplish  the  feat  given  him  to  perform  in  less  than  fif- 
teen minutes ;  and  Montgomery  was  delighted  with  the 
word  to  "  come."  He  told  Hat  tie  to  be  calm ;  that  the 
rascals  would  be  foiled,  and  she  proved  innocent,  —  as  she 
was,  in  reality,  before  another  day  rolled  round.  He 
rushed  to  the  cells,  opened  the  one  in  which  was  Restell, 
drew  in  Daniels  with  him,  and  clutching  the  villain  by  the 
hair,  said  to  him,  "  I  have  you,  you  scamp,  you  murderer, 
you  — !  "  But  it  will  hardly  do  to  repeat  here  the  last 
word,  implying  crimes  which,  though  common  enough,  are 
hardly  fit  for  the  eye  of  the  general  reader  to  see  named 
in  print.  "  You  show  your  guilt,  and  my  proof  you  know, 
when  I  name  Mary ;  and  now  you  have  been  person- 
ating an  officer,  helping  that  Harland  to  destroy  an  inno- 
cent girl.  You  have  your  choice,  whether  to  go  with  me 
at  once  to  the  Tombs,  and  from  there  to  Sing  Sing  Prison 
for  five  or  ten  years,  or  to  tell  me  all  about  what  Harland 
and  you  have  been  doing.  Make  a  full  confession."  Mont- 
gomery spoke  as  rapidly  as  lightning,  Aid  there  was  a 
terrible  firmness  and  earnestness  in  h.j  voice.  Restell 


218  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

quivered.  He  saw  that  he  was  known.  He  had  been 
guilty  of  a  terrible  crime  ;  had  personated  an  officer,  too, — 
a  misdemeanor  punishable  with  fine,  —  and  he  was  sure  to 
be  caught  in  the  conspiracy  with  Harland ;  and  he  thought 
it  the  better  way  to  confess  at  once,  which  he  did ;  and 
he  told  Montgomery  that  Harland  had  managed  to  slip  the 
ring  into  the  girl's  reticule  at  the  theatre  a  few  nights  be- 
fore ;  that  the  ring  was  a  paste  one,  and  not  a  diamond 
ring;  that  its  setting  was  really  worth  about  twenty-five 
dollars,  but  the  diamond  being  only  paste,  Harlaud  had 
not  risked  much;  that  Harland  wanted  to  degrade  the 
girl,  get  her  away  from  her  place,  get  her  a  situation  him- 
self, make  her  dependent  on  him,  and  finally  make  her  his 
mistress.  "  And  he  told  me  I  might  have  her  a  part  of  the 
time,  if  I  would  help  support  her,"  said  Restell ;  "  and  when 
I  came  to  see  her,  I  found  her  so  beautiful  that  I  agreed 
to  help  him,  and  went  with  him,  as  an  officer,  to  look  for 
the  ring,  and  we  were  after  her  to-night,  and  got  there 
five  minutes  after  she'd  left.  That's  how  'tis,"  said  he, 
"  and  I  went  one  way  in  search  of  her,  and  Harland  an- 
other." "  Where  were  you  to  meet  when  one  of  you 
found  her?  "  quickly  asked  Daniels.  "  At  Washington  Pa- 
rade Ground,  on  this  north-west  corner."  "  Ay,  ay," 
said  Daniels,  "  I  know  that  fellow.  We'll  nab  him,"  —  and 
taking  an  officer  with  him,  proceeded  at  once  to  the  spot, 
and  luckily  found  Harland  walking  back  and  forth  there, 
very  nervously.  Daniels  knew  him,  and  without  a  word, 
as  they  were  about  to  pass  each  other,  knocked  the  rascal 
down,  and  fell  upon  him,  while  the  officer  clutched  him 
too.  "  Don't  make  any  noise,  or  yon  are  a  dead  man," 
said  Daniels.  "  Give  me  that  diamond  ring  the  first  thing, 
or  die,"  clutching  the  scoundrel  by  the  throat,  till  he  was 
so  nearly  dead  that  he  could  hardly  point  with  his  finger 
to  an  inside  vest  pocket,  where  Daniels  put  his  hand,  and 
found  a  wallet,  in  which  he  found  the  ring.  Getting  that, 
he  let  the  scamp  up.  He  wanted  the  ring  to  prove  its 
paste  character,  as  one  of  the  evidences  against  the  vil- 


HATTIE'S   INNOCENT  IGNORANCE.  219 

lain.  "  Now."  said  he,  "  Restell  "is  nabbed.  You  see  he 
has  '  peached  '  on  you,  and  we  want  you  to  go  along  with 
us  to  him."  The  officer  told  Harland  that  if  he  didn't  go 
quietly,  he  would  "  put  the  irons  on ; "  and  Harland  felt 
the  propriety  of  subjection,  without  any  attempt  at  escape. 
Meanwhile  Mrs.  Daniels  had  arrived,  and  being  instructed 
by  Montgomery,  had  inquired  into  Harland's  conduct  to- 
\vards  her.  It  was  evident  that  his  intentions  had  long  been 
to  possess  her,  but  that  the  girl,  in  her  innocence,  had  not 
known  what  he  meant ;  and  when  he  had  asked  her  to 
marry  him,  although  she  had  considerable  liking  of,  and  af- 
fection for  him,  she  had  refused  to  accept  him  for  the  time, 
and  he  had  urged  her  several  times.  She  saidkhe  was  al- 
ways quite  nervous,  and  sometimes  almost  angry,  that  she 
would  not  marry  him ;  yet,  after  all.  he  had  been  very 
kind  to  her  in  most  respects  f  iiad  made  her  several  pres- 
ents, and  taken  her  and  her  cousin  to  the  theatre,  etc., 
whenever  they  could  get  away  from  the  shop.  Some 
things  which  she  told  Mrs.  Daniels,  on  the  latter's  mi- 
nutely inquiring  into  the  modes  in  which  he  had  treated 
her,  and  what  he  had  said,  showed  a  peculiar  innocence  in 
the  girl,  amounting  to  almost  stupidity.  Yet  it  was  no 
wonder,  after  all,  in  view  of  her  careful  rearing  at  home. 

What  Mrs.  D.  learned  confirmed  Mr.  D.'s  and  Montgom- 
ery's theory,  and  with  it,  and  all  they  had  learned  before, 
they  had  solved  the  problem.  Harland  saw  how  thorough- 
ly he  was  caught,  and  thought  best  to  acknowledge  that 
what  Restell  had  disclosed  was  the'  truth ;  that  the  girl 
•was  innocent ;  and  he  went  so  far  as  to  express  his  love  for 
her  with  tears,  and  was  allowed  to  see  her,  and  beg  her 
pardon  on  his  knees,  with  protestations  of  love,  and  his 
desire  to  marry  her.  He  was  allowed  to  do  this,  only  that 
Hattie  might  have  better  evidence  of  her  innocence,  for  it 
was  done  in  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Daniels's  and  Montgomery's  pres- 
ence. Harland  wanted  to  give  her  the  ring  which  Daniels 
handed  to  her  for  him,  but  she  spurned  it ;  and  Daniels 
said  he  would  keep  it  for  her,  to  which  Harland  consented ; 


220  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

for  Daniels  had  a  notion  that  Harland  would  yet  do  evil 
with  it  if  he  possessed  it.  To  make  all  sure,  Mr.  Brown 
was  sent  for,  routed  out  of  bed,  and  brought  before  the 
girl  and  Harland,  and  Harland  made  to  repeat  his  confes- 
sion before  him.  Mr.  Brown  was  delighted,  put  his  arms 
about  Hattie,  called  her  his  own  child,  and  said  he  could 
not  all  the  while  believe  she  meant  to  do  any  wrong ;  but 
there  was  the  ring  in  the  reticule,  and  she.  had  stoutly  de- 
nied having  any  such  ring;  and  how  could  it  have  gotten 
in  there  without  her  putting  it  there?  etc.  This  had 
convinced  him  against  his  will ;  but  he  said  he  would  never 
believe  any  charge  against  anybody  on  circumstantial  evi- 
dence again,  flattie  was  taken  back  into  his  employ,  re- 
mained wfth  him  over  a  year,  as  kindly  cared  for  as  if  she 
was  his  child,  and  finally  went  back  to  Vermont  as  the 
wife  of  young  Phelps,  who,  had,  at  last,  overcome  his  fa- 
ther's objections,  mostly  through  his  mother's  interces- 
sions, who  had  died  meanwhile,  and  who,  on  her  death- 
bed, had  made  him  promise  to  let  the  son  marry  the  girl 
he  loved. 

Harland  agreed  to  leave  New  York  forever  if  proceed- 
ings were  not  taken  against  him ;  and  having  money  enough 
(obtained,  though,  by  gambling  and  forgeries),  the  officers 
thought  it  no  wrong  to  make  him  pay  pretty  liberally  for 
the  trouble  he  had  made ;  and  Mr.  Daniels,  having  Hattie's, 
good  at  heart,  was  not  easy  with  him  in  his  demands,  but 
secured  enough,  so  that  Mr.  Brown  could  afford  to  do  a 
great  deal  for  her;  for,  at  different  times,  Mr.  Daniels  put 
sums  of  money  into  Mr.  Brown's  hands  to  buy  this  or  that 
for  Hattie,  letting  her  suppose  that  it  all  came  from  Brown's 
generosity  ;  and  it  should  be  added,  that  the  latter  icas  gen* 
erous  to  her  also,  for  he  always  added  to  the  sums  given 
him,  and  purchased  bette*  things  than  directed  for  her,  as 
a  sort  of  quietus,  it  is  supposed,  to  his  wounded  conscience, 
in  believing  that  she  was  guilty.  Harland  decamped  ;  but 
he  came  back  at  last, and  carried  Charlotte  Kceney  off  with 
him  somewhere  as  his  wife, —  which  was  the  strangest 


BHI 


rtESTELL  AT  SlNG  SING. 


MAN'S   CONSTANCY.  223 

part  of  the  story.  She  had  loved  him  before  Hattie  came, 
and  he  had  probably  loved  her,  but  Hattie's  great  beauty 
had  attracted  him  from  her  ;  that  is,  his  affection,  —  for  he 
had  always  taken  Charlotte  along  with  Hattie  to  theatres 
and  elsewhere.  The  fact  is,  there  was  a  jealousy  of  Ilattie 
in  Charlotte's  heart,  so  great,  that  though  she  loved  her 
cousin,  it  seemed  that  she  was  almost  sorry  that  she 
proved  innocent  at  last ;  and  she  felt  Harland's  absence, 
notwithstanding  his  villany,  greatly.  The  heart  of  a  wo- 
man will  cling  to  her  lover  or  husband  in  crime  or  oblo- 
quy, almost  as  strongly  as  the  heart  of  a  loving  man  will 
cling  to,  and  protect,  the  woman  he  really  loves,  doing 
deeds  of  crime  at  her  will,  and,  in  fact,  wrecking  fortune, 
and  health,  and  life  at  her  behest.  It  is  common  to  de- 
clare the  constancy  of  woman  greater  than  that  of  man ; 
but  that  is  a  false  notion,  cherished  only  by  the  inexpe- 
rienced in  human  nature's  laws.  Charlotte  found  pardon 
in  her  own  heart  for  Harland ;  and  if  she  did  not  invent 
sensible  excuses  for  his  conduct,  was  not  wanting  in  the 
number  of  them.  She  married,  and  was  heard  from  after- 
wards as  living  happily  with  him  somewhere. 

Restell  expected  to  escape  his  deserts  by  peaching  on 
Harland ;  but  Montgomery  had  not  so  promised  him  when 
Daniels  caged  him  in  the  cell,  and  Montgomery  had  taken 
care  to  not  do  so,  for  officers  of  the  law  and  detectives  are 
very  scrupulous  about  keeping  their  plighted  word  to  even 
the  basest  criminals.  And  if  they  were  not  so,  the  whole 
fraternity  of  wretches  would  know  it,  and  refuse  to  give 
evidence  at  any  time,  and  thus  many  a  criminal  mystery 
would  go  unexplained,  and  many  an  innocent,  like  Hattie, 
might  suffer  the  full  consequences  of  a  criminality  of 
which  they  were  not  guilty.  It  is  often  better  to  let  a 
dozen  guilty  go  than  that  one  innocent  should  suffer. 
Restell  was  taken  to  the  Tombs,  on  charge  of  a  crime  here 
unmentionable  ;  but  a  portion  of  the  evidence  against  him 
failed  by  the  death  of  a  witness  for  the  prosecution, 
while  he  lay  in  prison,  and  a  matter  of  forgery  having 

9* 


224  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

meanwhile  become  disclosed  involving  him,  ho  was  tried 
on  that,  and  sent  to  Sing  Sing  for  four  years  and  some 
months  —  the  longest  term  the  law  would  allow  for  his 
offence. 

Mr.  Daniels  interwove  in  this  narrative  many  interest- 
ing facts,  to  which  I  cannot,  at  this  distance  of  time,  do 
justice.  He  was  a  keen  observer  of  human  nature,  and 
told  a  story  pleasantly.  He  recited  to  me  many  other 
talcs  of  almost  equal  interest ;  and,  as  I  learn  that  he  is 
alive  at  this  writing,  I  am  not  sure  that  I  shall  not  try  to 
hunt  him  up,  and  engage  him  to  give  zest,  with  his  piquant 
stories,  to  these  pages  ;  for  it  matters  not  whose  an  inter- 
esting experience  may  be,  so  that  we  have  the  facts. 
Truly,  "  facts  are  stranger  than  fictions  "  often ;  and  it  has 
occurred  to  me,  while  hunting  over  my  diaries  and  bur- 
nishing up  my  memory,  to  hint  to  my  publishers  that  the 
truest,  shortest,  and  best  way  to  collect  a  volume  of  mar- 
vellous experiences  would  be  to  invite  a  number  of  detec- 
tives to  dinner,  accompanied  by  short-hand  reporters,  and 
treat  them  so  well  that  they  tarry  with  their  story-telling 
through  the  night. 


ABOUT  BOGUS  LOTTERIES. 


HOW   THEY   ARE    "GOT    UP  " — THEIR    MODE    OP   OPERATIONS     DETAILED  — 

HOW     THKY     MANAGE     THE      "DRAWN     NUMBERS"     BEFOREHAND THE 

GREAT  SHREWDNESS  OP  THE  OPERATORS  —  THE  SOCIAL  RESPECTABILI- 
TY OP  THESE — THE  GREAT  FIRM  OP  "  G.  W.  HUNTINGTON  &  CO." 

THE  IMMENSE  CIRCULATION  OF  THEIR  JOURNAL  —  THEIR  VICTIM,  A 
MAINE  FARMER,  WHO  BELIEVED  HE  HAD  '•  DRAWN  "  FIVE  THOUSAND 
DOLLARS,  AND  COUNSELLOR  WHEATON,  HIS  LAWYER,  A  STORY  TO  THE 
POINT  —  WHO  INVEST  IN  LOTTERIES  :  CHILDREN,  WIDOWS,  CLERGYMEN, 
BANK  CASHIERS,  ETC.  —  HOW  THE  FIRM  OP  "  G.  W.  H.  &  CO."  WAS 

CAPTURED  NO.    23,    WILLIAM     STREET,    NEW    YORK,    THEIR     PRETENDED 

BANKING  HOUSE  —  HOW  A  BOGUS  LOTTERY  COMPANY  SWINDLED  ITS 
OWN  AGENTS A  QUEER  TALE. 

THE  object  of  these  narratives  is  not  simply  to  paint  hu- 
man nature  in  the  color  of  its  subtle  facts,  more  strange 
than  the  imaginings  of  fiction,  in  order  to  excite  the  read- 
er's mind  as  he  runs  over  these  pag^es,  or  to  feed  the 
greediness  for  the  marvellous  —  not  these  alone  ;  but  the 
writer  trusts  that  what  he  has  taken  so  much  pains  to  cull 
out  of  the  repertoire  of  his  observations  and  experiences, 
and  from  those  of  others,  and  reproduce  here  for  the  in- 
struction of  his  fellow-men,  shall  be  found  useful  as  well 
as  interesting  ;  and  by  teaching  those  who  are  inclined  to 
the  commission  of  offences  against  law  and  the  good  order 
of  society,  that  they  cannot  easily  escape  discovery  if  they 
commit  crimes,  shall  prevent,  to  some  degree,  the  perpe- 
tration of  such  crimes.  But  there  are  sufferers  as  well 
as  guilty  actors,  and  these  the  writer  would  serve  also,  as 
well  as  preserve  the  innocent  and  unwary  from  the  opera- 
tion of  those  crafts  and  cunning  devices  by  which  they 
might  be  made  sufferers. 

To-day,  tumbling  over  some  old  files  of  notes  and  papers 

225 


226  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

at  the  bottom  of  an  old  trunk,  .the  contents  of  which  had 
not  been  thoroughly  disturbed  for  over  ten  years  before, 
there  came  to  light  a  sealed  package,  marked  "  The  Bogus 
Lottery  Papers :  not  to  be  opened  without  my  consent.'' 
This  package  has  awakened  a  host  of  "  memories  of  other 
days,"  and  decided  me  to  wander  a  little  perhaps  from  the 
preconceived  line  of  these  narratives  ;  and  not  so,  either  ; 
for  in  this  tale  it  will  be  seen  that  the  detective  had  his 
legitimate  part  to  play  in  the  matter  which  it  recalls. 

The  package  is  found  to  contain  notes  for  guidance  in 
working  up  the  case  ;  letters  from  dupes  or  victims  of  the 
crafty  speculators  in  human  credulity ;  bits  of  the  per- 
sonal history  of  some  of  these  wily  scamps,  and  which  they 
would  hardly  desire  to  see  in  public  print,  with  their  truo 
names  affixed  (for  some  of  them  were  and  are  of  high  rank 
in  the  business,  social,  and  literary  world) ;  copies  of  cer- 
tain financial  journals,  devoted  to  the  dissemination  of  re- 
markable facts  tending  to  show  the  wise  philosophy  of 
"  nothing  venture,  nothing  have,"  and  from  their  first  col- 
umn to  the  last,  filled  with  cunning  lies  ;  my  own  corre- 
spondence with  certain  victims ;  memoranda  of  facts  gath- 
ered at  sundry  pos't  offices  and  elsewhere  ;  piteous  letters 
from  the  deluded;  correspondence  with  lawyers  on  the 
subject  at  issue,  etc.,  etc.,  —  quite  a  little  pile,  as  they  lie 
on  my  table  here.  Some  of  the  letters  have  grown  dark 
with  age,  and  there  is  a  peculiar  smell  about  them,  as  if 
they  hinted  at  unsavory  things,  and  so  they  do. 

And  these  remind  one  of  other  years  very  peculiarly, 
and  suggest  many  thoughts  on  human  weakness  and  per- 
versity. I  am  vexed  not  a  little  as  I  look  over  them,  and 
call  to  mind  the  class  of  men  who  mingled  in  the  iniquities 
of  which  I  am  about  to  speak,  that  I  cstanot  write  out  these 
men's  names  for  tho  public  eye.  But  some  of  them  have 
"  reformed,"  have  gone  into  legitimate  business,  and  have 
families  dear  to  them,  and  who  were  ever  quite  uncon- 
scious of  the  modes  by  which  their  husbands  and  fathers 
obtained  money  here  in  this  seething  sea  of  iniquity  of 


A   SAD  REFLECTION.  227 

New  York,  —  this  worse  than  modern  Babylon,  —  whom  it 
would  be  cruel  now  to  wound.  And  I  call  to  memory  now 
one  of  these  operators  in  petty  villany,  who  is  dead  —  a  no- 
ble fellow  in  the  general  way,  a  son  of  a  distinguished 
father,  well  bred,  and  related  by  blood  to  some  of  the 
first,  and  really  finest  people  in  New  York.  Ah !  what 
would  a  certain  philanthropist  say  —  a  man  who  leads  no- 
ble charities,  devotes  his  now  declining  years  to  the  prac- 
tical duties  of  a  Sunday  school  teacher,  and  whose  voice 
has  been,  Avithin  a  few  years  past,  heard  in  the  national  Con- 
gress,as  that  of  one  of  the  few  there  whom  the  corruptions  of 
politics  have  not  stained  ;  a  man  of  large  wealth,  with  which 
he  makes  far  less  display  than  many  a  man  of  the  expen- 
sive habits  of  these  latter  days  with  but  a  tenth  or  fiftieth 
of  the  former's  income,  and  a  man  of  marked  intelligence, 
too,  as  well  as  of  high  morals,  —  what  would  he  say,  were  it 
disclosed  to  him  that  his  relatives,  his  nephews,  the  sons 
of  his  not  unnoted  sisters,  were  participants  in  these 
crimes, — cool-blooded,  mean,  devilish, — and  continued,  and 
carried  on,  under  the  guise  of  "  business,"  and  indeed  as  a 
business  for  years?  But  if  this  simply,  were  told  him,  he 
could  not  understand  the  half,  for  he  would  not  know  the 
half.  I  shall  spare  the  participants  in  those  criminal 
schemes  the  mention  of  their  names  here,  though  I  con- 
ceive that  I  should  have  done  no  more  than  my  duty  had 
I,  at  the  time  in  question,  given  them  publicity  through 
the  press.  But  even  in  the  last  ten  years  the  public  sen- 
timent has  largely  changed,  not  only  in  New  York,  but 
throughout  the  country,  perhaps,  in  regard  to  the  true 
standard  of  morals,  or  the  recognition  of  any  standard  at 
all,  may  be;  and  those  who  are  acquainted  with  the  modes 
of  conducting  business  in  Wall  Street,  —  (the  real  centre 
of  practical  government  for  the  nation),  —  and  therefore 
know  what  iniquities  transpire  there  in  the  way  of  "  legit- 
imate business,"  so  called,  could  hardly  be  surprised  at 
anything  I  might  disclose  of  the  past.  It  is  a  sad  reflec- 
tion that  the  greed  vof  gain  governs  everything  else  in 


228  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

these  days  in  this  Union  ;  and  that  the  manner  of  obtain- 
ing a  fortune  is,  in  most  people's  opinion,  of  no  account, 
however  vile,  in  comparison  with  the  matter  of  possessing 
it.  Money  is  a  veil  which  will  cover  every  crime,  and  no- 
body knows  this  fact  more  snrely  than  the  detective.  It 
is  a  fact,  that  to  save  anything  like  a  fair  proportion  of  the 
value  of  a  thing  stolen,  the  loser  will  almost  universally 
compromise  with  the  thief  when  the  detective  secures 
him.  "  Compounding  a  felony,"  in  itself  a  crime  at  the 
Common  Law,  has  become  so  universal  as  to  be  the  "  com- 
mon law"  itself:  and  in  New  York  it  is  a  matter  of  but 
slight  disgrace,  at  most,  to  be  guilty  of  any  crime;  and 
especially  of  those  crimes  by  which  the  perpetrator  se- 
cures a  large  amount  of  money.  Wall  Street,  for  example, 
is  thronged  every  day  by  men  in  respectable  and  high 
ranks  of  society,  who  are  frequently  guilty  of  crimes 
which  would,  a  generation  ago,  have  consigned  them  to 
the  State  Prison  for  a  long  term  of  years,  if  not  for  life. 
But  after  all,  the  reflection  comes  that  morals,  like  the 
matter  of  conscience,  are  educatable,  changeable ;  and 
that  the  hearts  of  men  are  not  so  very  bad  at  bottom, 
most  wrongs  being  chargeable  to  the  institutions  of  the 
people.  Competition,  instead  of  cooperation,  being  the  rule, 
and  the  depraved  doctrines  of  such  writers  as  Carlyle,  ad- 
vocating the  development  of  the  individual,  rather  than 
the  interest  of  communities  and  blended  peoples,  have  had 
a  direct  tendency  to  increase  the  volume  of  crime. 

But  I  will,  with  these  "  prefatory  remarks,"  return  to 
the  body  of  my  subject.  New  York  contains  a  large  num- 
ber of  people  who  obtain  their  living  by  the  practice  of 
frauds,  of  one  kind  and  another.  The  gambling  saloons, 
with  their  marked  cards,  and  faro  banks,  so  arranged  that 
while  the  pretension  of  fairness  is  observed,  the  chances 
in  favor  of  the  bank  are  made  sure  in  the  proportion 
of  ninety  per  cent,  to  ten  per  cent,  for  every  hundred  dol- 
lars which  go  upon  the  table;  the  iniquitous  "corners" 
made  in  Wall  Street,  and  all  the  fine  scheming  of  the 


BOGUS  COMPANIES.  229 

Bulls  and  the  Bears,  etc.,  etc.,  illustrate  this.  In  fact,  com- 
merce itself  is,  in  all  its  avenues,  made  to  bend  to  this  skill 
of  fraud  in  making  money,  and  making  a  living;  and  it  is 
a  wonder  that  there  are  not  more,  rather  than  less  of  the 
institutions  of  which  I  am  about  to  speak,  in  New  York. 
These  exist  to-day :  but  it  is  a  long  while  since  I  have 
been  called  into  relations  with  them  in  a  professional  ca- 
pacity. 

At  the  time  to  which  I  allude,  there  were  several  bogus 
Lottery  Companies  having  their  centre  in  New  York,  and 
extending  their  operations  all  over  the  country,  fleecing 
the  credulous  people  to  the  extent  of  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  dollars  a  year.  In  Maryland  and  in  Georgia,  and 
also  in  Kentucky,  at  that  time,  lotteries  were  licensed,  and 
perhaps  in  some  other  States ;  but  most  of  the  States  pro- 
hibited them.  Cuba,  too,  licensed  extensive  lotteries,  and 
Havana  was,  as  she  still  is,  the  chief  city  of  the  world, 
perhaps,  in  this  respect.  The  bogus  companies  in  New 
York  mostly  pretended  to  be  agents  of  the  legitimate 
companies  to  which  I  allude  above ;  and  purported  to  give 
their  "  policy-holders  "  the  true  reports  of  the  public 'draw- 
ings of  these  lotteries,  by  which  their  fate,  as  winners  or 
losers,  was  decided.  Among  these  companies  of  scamps, 
was  one,  self-styled  "  G.  W.  Huntington  &  Co.,'-'  concocted 
and  "  managed  "  by  men  of  classical  education  ,  high  bred, 
representing  some  of  the  really  best  families  in  the  land, 
but  who  had  not  been  as  fortunate  in  legitimate  business 
as  desirable,  and  so  resorted  to  this  course  of  fraud  in 
order  to  make  money  easier,  and  more  of  it.  They  knew 
the  value  of  advertising,  to  any  business,  and  they  pub- 
lished a  sheet  in  the  form,  in  part,  of  a  literary  paper,  in 
which  counterfeit  schemes  of  the  companies  they  pre- 
tended to  represent,  were  set  forth-  in  due  style.  It  ap- 
peared, in  the  course  of  my  investigation  of  these  affairs, 
that  this. company  issued  monthly  no  less  than  two  hun- 
dred thousand  copies  of  this  paper,  which  were  sent  to 
various  addresses,  culled  out  of  directories,  and  otherwise 


230  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

obtained,  from  almost  every  village  as  well  as  city  in  the 
nation,  north  and  south,  east  and  west ;  but  principally  in  ' 
the  Western  and  Middle  States.  As  the  agents  of  the  com- 
panies they  pretended  to  represent,  and  of  pretended  com- 
panies too,  which  never  had  an  existence,  these  men  were 
in  constant  receipt  of  letters,  containing  from  fifty  cents, 
as  a  minimum,  up  to  ten  dollars,  usually  the  maximum, 
from  their  victims,  who  wished  to  purchase  tickets  in 
this  or  that  drawing ;  and  they  got  tickets  in  return,  to  be 
sure.  I  was  informed  that  these  letters  were  received  in 
numbers  varying  from  thirty  to  a  hundred  a  day,  for  sev- 
eral days,  and  even  weeks  at  a  time,  when  some  especially 
grand  "  drawing "  was  announced  to  soon  take  place. 
Their  mode  of  operations,  as  disclosed  in  our  investiga- 
tions, was  this:  They  first  fixed  upon  nine  numbers,  which 
they  were  to  report  after  the  alleged  (pretended)  drawing 
should  have  taken  place,  as  the  numbers  drawn  —  thus, 
for  example :  — 

1,     7,     14,    35,     11,     8,    55,     91,     240. 

According  to  their  "  rules,"  whoever  chanced  to  hold  a 
ticket  upon  which  any  three  of  the  above  numbers  should 
appear  in  consecutive  order  (as,  for  example,  1,  7,  14 ;  or 
11,8,55;  or  7,  14r  35)  —  would  draw  the  largest  prize 
of  the  scheme  in  which  he  bought  his  ticket,  and  in  many 
of  these  schemes  such  sums  as  $50,000,  or  $100,000,  or 
$250,000,  were  announced  as  the  chief  prizes ;  and  then 
there  were  numerous  small  prizes  in  each  scheme  which 
the  ticket  holder  was  sure  to  draw  if  he  happened  to  hold 
a  ticket  with  numbers  thereon,  which  should  represent 
two  of  the  above  numbers  consecutively  ;  and  so  on  ran 
their  rules.  Well,  having  previously  decided  what  num- 
bers they  would  report  to  their  countless  victims  as  the 
drawn  numbers,  these  wily  scoundrels  had,  for  their  safety, 
only  to  take  care  in  issuing  each  ticket  to  see  that  it  did 
not  contain  any  three  of  the  "  drawn  numbers  "  in  consecu- 
tive order.  To  A,  for  example,  they  would  send  a  ticket 


AN  ENCOURAGING  LETTER.  231 

bearing  the  Nos.  "  1,"  «  7,"  80  ;  to  B,  "  11,"  "  8,"  200,  etc., 
etc. ;  and  after  the  "  drawing  "  they  would  send  their  re- 
port, containing  a  slip  of  paper  bearing  the  nine  "  drawn 
numbers,"  as  above  arranged,  with  a  letter,  "running 
somewhat  this  wise.  —  I  am  sure  I  had,  at  one  time,  several 
of  the  letters  actually  sent  to  victims,  but  they  do  not  dis- 
close themselves  from  my  package  now ;  but  no  matter, 
for  my  memory  of  them  is  pretty  clear.  The  report  of 
drawings  was  private  ;  but  the  letters  were  usually  written 
with  a  pen,  in  part,in  order  the  better  to  flatter  each  per- 
son that  the  company  took  especial  notice  of  him,  and 
hoped  for  his  particular  success. 

(Here  was  a  picture  of  their  Banking  Office.) 

BANKING  HOUSE  or  G.  TV.  HUNTINGTON  &  Co.,  Bankers  and  Brokers, 

and  Dealers  in  Foreign  Exchange,  and  Agents  for  the  chief 

Baltimore  and  Havana  Lotteries,  23  William  Street. 

"  NEW  YORK,  June  14,  1858. 

"  JOHN  HENRY  JONES,  ESQ.,  Harrisburgh,  Pa. 

''  The  public  drawing  of  the  '  Grand  Consolidated  Lot- 
teries '  of  Baltimore,  Md.,  No. ,  took  place  as  adver- 
tised, yesterday.  Herewith  find  slip  bearing  the  drawn 
numbers."  (Thus  far,  save  the  address,  printed,  then  fol- 
lowed in  writing.)  "  We  are  sorry  to  perceive  that  your 

ticket  in  scheme  No. ,  and  numbered  14,  35,  80,  has 

drawn  a  blank.  But  you  observe  that  you  came  near  win- 
ning the  chief  prize,  as  we  heartily  wish  you  had  (as  it  is 
for  our  interest  as  agents  that  our  special  customers  be 
lucky);  '14,  35,'  only  needed  '11'  to  follow  them,  to 
have  made  you  a  rich  man.  But  perhaps  your  luck  will 
come  next  time.  *  Perseverance  is  a  virtue  which  wins 
in  the  long  run.'  Hoping  for  your  further  favors,  and 
that  you  will  yet  be  amply  lucky,  we  beg  to  remain, 
"  Your  obedient,  humble  servants, 

"  G.  W.  HUNTINGTON  &  Co." 
14 


232  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

Now,  "John  Henry  Jones,  Esq."  was  probably  an  igno- 
rant, low-minded,  dirty-faced  ironmonger,  of  Harrisburgh, 
who  managed  now  and  then  to  get  together  a  few  dollars, 
and  had  a  hankering  to  get  rich  fast.  His  letter  to  the 
company  was  badly  spelled,  and  so  forth  ;  but  it  contained 
money,  and  was,  therefore,  as  acceptable  as  the  elegantly- 
written  letter  of  some  cashier  of  a  bank  in  Ohio,  or  some 
poor  clergyman  of  Illinois,  who  thought  it  no  harm  to  try 
his  luck  for  once — (for  many  clergymen,  as  well  as  other?, 
get  bitten  by  these  schemes).  John  had  never  been  ad- 
dressed as  "  Esquire  "  before ;  never  received  such  a 
polite  letter  in  his  life,  and  from  a  great  banking  house,  in 
the  largest  city  on  the  continent !  and  John  was  flattered. 
Besides,  he  had  almost  drawn  a  great  prize  ;  of  course  he 
would  "  try  again,"  and  again,  and  again,  for  it  appears  that 
many  persons  become  infatuated  in  this  sort  of  speculation, 
and  will  buy  lottery  tickets  several  times  a  year,  and  year 
after  year,  for  a  long  period,  even  without  a  particle  of 
success. 

When  a  customer  sent  these  fellows  ten  dollars,  they 
would  so  arrange  the  numbers  on  his  ticket,  sometimes, 
in  relation  to  the  prepared  drawn  numbers,  as  to  allow 
him  to  draw  one,  two,  or  three  dollars,  so  that  he  should 
not  feel  that  his  loss  had  been  entire,  and  to  tempt  him  by 
a  little  success  to  try  again  for  a  greater  one.  This  will 
serve  to  illustrate  the  business  ways  of  the  fellows;  and 
just  here,  since  it  now  comes  to  mind,  perhaps  I  had  bet- 
ter note  a  little  a  sidp  issue  "  of  one  of  these  companies, 
of  which  I  was  told  by  one  of  the  participants.  The  com- 
pany had  its  agents, — postmasters,  many  of  them, —  all  over 
the  country,  —  and  thought  they  would  make  a  little  specu- 
lation on  their  agents  themselves.  So  they  prepared  a 
splendid  "  scheme,"  —  a  wonderful  GRAND  CONSOLIDATED 
UNION  DRAWING,  etc.  The  tickets  were  most  elegantly 
printed,  and  vary-colored,  in  red,  blue,  and  black,  on  the 
nicest  paper.  No  ticket  in  this  grand  scheme  was  less 
than  ten  dollars.  To  some  fifteen  hundred  of  their  agents', 


A   SHREWD   DEVICE.  233 

in  as  many  different  localities,  they  sent  from  three  to  five 
of  these  tickets  each,  with  a  printed  letter,  but  marked 
"  very  confidential,"  setting  forth  the  great  advantages  of 
the  new  scheme,  and  suggesting  that  among  these  tickets 
were  doubtless  many  prizes,  and  the  company  did  not  ex- 
pect to  reap  much  profits  from  the  sale  of  tickets  in  this 
scheme,  but  were  anxious  that  its  old  customers  should 
reap  the  prizes,  and  so  forth.  Of  course  the  company  did 
not  expect  that  any  agent  would  be  able  to  sell  all  the 
tickets  sent  him,  even  though  so  few,  and  were  surprised 
that  many  were  disposed  of  before  the  time  of  the  alleged 
drawing.  On  the  day  of  the  "  drawing,"  more  than  nine 
tenths  of  the  tickets  still  remained  unsold,  and  unreported 
upon  in  the  hands  of  the  agents.  Having  prepared  writ- 
ten letters  in  anticipation  of  the  small  sales,  as  a  part  of 
the  trick,  they  sent  them  forth  to  each  agent.  The  letter 
ran  something  like  this,  in  substance :  — 

"  DEAR  SIR  :  The  drawing  of  the  Grand  C.  U.  Lottery 
took  place  at  Baltimore,  at  twelve  M.,  yesterday.  Please 
to  return  us  the  tickets,  Nos.  — ,  — ,  — ,  — ,  — ,  now  in 
your  hands,  at  once,  without  fail,  and  buy  back  any,  if  you 
can,  which  you  may  have  disposed  of,  and  charge  us,  and 
ask  no  questions,  and  we  will  send  you  certified  copy  of 
drawing  immediately  on  your  reply. 

"  Yours,  most  respectfully, 


This  being  an  unusual  way  of  doing  business,  excited 
the  agent's  suspicion.  He  reflected  that  probably  some 
one  of  the  tickets  he  held  had  drawn  a  great  prize,  and  that 
the  company  meant  to  keep,  it,  but  he  could  not,  of  course, 
guess  which ;  and  so  as  to  secure  the  prize  himself,  he 
would  hold  all  the  tickets,  send  on  the  money  for  them, 
with  an  apology  for  not  having  reported  earlier,  and  fre- 
quently with  a  long  lie  about  the  trouble  he  had  had,  and 
naming  this  or  that  man  to  whom  the  tickets  had  been 


234  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

sold.  So  hundreds  of  them  sent  hi,  after  the  day  of  the 
alleged  drawing,  from  thirty  to  fifty  dollars  apiece,  accord- 
ing to  the  number  of  tickets  they  held,  and  received  by 
return  mail  a  "  certified  report "  of  the  drawing,  by  which 
they  discovered  that  the  tickets  they' held  were  all  blanks, 
each,  perhaps,  thinking  that  somebody  else  had  drawn  the 
"  mammoth  prizes."  This  trick  was  fruitful  to  the  amount 
of  a  great  many  thousands  of  dollars,  and  cost  the  com- 
pany only  its  expenses  for  printing,  stationery,  and  post- 
age. These  same  agents  continued  to  act  for  the  com- 
pany, and  I  presume  that  not  one  of  them  to  this  day 
knows  how  he  was  taken  in.  But  I  trust  that  this  narra- 
tive will  fall  into  the  hands  of  many  a  one  of  them,  and 
open  his  eyes  as  to  the  fact  of  his  having  been  made  a 
tool  of  by  designing  scamps  to  cheat  his  neighbors,  and  to 
be  cheated  himself. 

The  mayor  of  New  York  was  constantly  besieged,  and 
I  presume  the  same  is  the  case  now,  with  letters  from  all 
parts  of  the  country,  complaining  that  these  Avriters  had 
tried  and  tried  their  luck,  time  after  time,  in  this  or  that 
company,  in  vain,  and  asking  him  regarding  the  standing 
of  the  company,  and  so  forth.  Sometimes  a  victim  would 
get  his  eyes  open,  conceive  that  he  had  possibly  been 
cheated ;  or,  having  had  some  rupture  by  correspondence 
with  the  company,  discovered  that  he  was  cheated,  and 
beg  the  mayor  to  take  the  matter  in  hand.  On  two  or 
three  occasions,  within  my  memory,  the  police  have  made 
raids  upon  such  companies  as  they  could  get  at  ;  but 
usually  matters  were  so  secretly  conducted,  that  it  would 
cost  the  police  too  much  effort  to  get  at  anything  decided, 
especially  without  extra  compensation  foY  their  labors; 
and  the  frauds  complained  of  in  each  case  would  gener* 
ally  amount  to  not  over  ten  dollars  at  most,  and  the  com. 
plaints  usually,  perhaps  always,  came  from  obscure  men, 
living  at  a  great  distance  from  New  York,  who  could  not 
afford  to  come  and  attend  to  the  matter  themselves. 

But  the  companies  constantly  had  difficulty  from  one 


THE  MAINE  FARMER.  237 

quarter  of  the  land  or  another — enough  so  as  to  keep 
them  all  the  while  on  the  alert.  Their  offices  were  in  ob- 
scure places.  The  members  had  business  names  which 
differed  from  their  real  ones.  Ostensibly,  they  carried  on 
a  real  estate  business,  for  example,  actually  doing  some- 
thing in  that  line  for  respectability's  sake,  and  conducting 
their  lottery  swindle  in  some  secret  room,  having  a  box  at 
the  post  office,  and  sending  for  their  letters  a  clerk,  who 
was  instructed  to  deposit  the  letters  in  some  secret  place, 
from  which  one  of  the  firm  would  secretly  take  them. 
Thus  they  managed.  But  one  day  "  there  came  trouble 
into  the  camp  "  of  «  G.  W.  Huntington  &  Co."  They  had 
sold  a  ticket  to  a  sturdy,  and  somewhat  intelligent  farmer 
in  or  near  Portland  or  Bangor,  Maine. (I  am  unable  to  find 
his  address  at  this  writing.)  When  the  alleged  drawing 
took  place,  the  company  sent  on  its  usual  report  to  the 
fanner,  among  the  rest  of  their  victims,  saying,  "  You  per- 
ceive that  your  ticket  has  unfortunately  drawn  a  blank. 
We  regret  it,"  etc. 

Now  the  farmer  had  "  studied  up "  on  tho  matter, 
.and  he  saw  that  if  they  had  sent  him  what  they  called 
the  copy  of  the  "certified  report"  of  the  drawing,  he 
had  drawn  a  prize  of  five  thousand  dollars,  instead  of  a 
blank,  and  so  he  politely  wrote  the  company  about  their 
mistake.  Correspondence  ensued,  in  which  the  company 
tried  to  convince  the  farmer  that  he  was  mistaken ;  but  it 
was  of  no  use.  The  farmer  was  too  keen  for  them,  and 
insisted  on  his  rights.  He  consulted  a  lawyer  in  his  place, 
and  the  lawyer  opened  correspondence  with  the  company, 
hinting  that  legal  measures  would  be  taken.  The  com- 
pany put  the  matter  into  their  lawyer's  hands,  and  the  two 
attorneys  fired  away  at  each  other,  the  company  laughing 
in  their  sleeves  over  the  humbugging  they  were  operating 
on  the  Maine  lawyer.  Finally  the  fanner's  lawyer  wrote 
on  to  say,  that  the  farmer  would  go  down  to  New  York, 
and  institute  proceedings  there,  unless  the  prize  waa 
cashed  within  a  week,  and  suggested  that  a  suit  would 


238  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

seriously  injure  the  credit  of  the  company.     To  this  the 
company,  by  its  lawyer,  made  no  reply. 

The  farmer  came  on,  and  proceeded  to  the  "  Banking- 
house  of  G.  W.  Huntington  &  Co.,  23  William  Street." 
He  brought  with  him  one  of  the  company's  papers,  in 
which  was  an  engraving  of  the  building,  23  William  Street, 
with  the  great  sign  of  "  G.  W.  Huntington  &  Co.,  Bankers," 
running  across  the  whole  face  of  the  building,  in  large  let- 
ters. His  astonishment  can  be  guessed  at  when  he  failed 
to  find  any  such  bankers,  or  any  such  sign  there.  There 
was  the  building,  correctly  represented  in  the  picture. 
The  rest  was  fiction,  of  course.  The  building,  except 
the  lower  story,  which  was  the  office  of  some  brokers,  I 
believe,  was  occupied  mainly  as  lawyers'  offices,  and  it 
changed  that  the  farmer,  in  his  astonishment  at  not  find- 
ing "  G.  W.  Huntington  &  Co.  "  there,  and  being  deter- 
mined to  investigate  the  affair,  and  not  be  cheated  out  of 
his  five  thousand-dollar  prize,  after  coming  all  the  way 
from  Maine,  sought  counsel  at  the  office  of  one  Mr. 
Wheaton,  —  a  great  criminal  lawyer,  and  the  son  of  the  dis- 
tinguished author  of  an  extensive  and  valuable  work,  in, 
two  Volumes,  on  International  Law  and  Practice.  Mr. 
Wheaton  was  the  same  gentleman  who,  a  few  years  ago, 
was  run  over  by  the  Harlem  train  of  cara,  on  its  way  out 
of  the  city,  and  killed.  He  was  a  very  gentlemanly  man, 
and  heard  the  poor  man's  case ;  told  him  that  the  company 
was.  undoubtedly  bogus ;  but  pitying  the  man,  who  was 
really  not  well  off  in  this  world's  goods,  undertook  to  aid 
him,  and  through  the  post  office  sent  a  very  polite  note 
to  the  company  touching  the  matter.  The  note  was  po- 
litely responded  to,  and  eventually,  after  three  or  four 
days'  delay,  the  company,  securing  a  sharp  and  unscrupu- 
lous lawyer,  sent  him  to  wait  upon  Mr.  Wheaton.  The 
lawyer  represented  that  he  did  not  know  the  company's 
place  of  business  even,  but  was  ready  to  treat  for  them  ; 
that  they  would  not  pay  a  dollar,  and  that  the  whole  trou- 
ble arose  from  some  mistake.  But  Mr.  Wheaton  would 


WHAT   HE  GOT.  239 

not  settle  without  something  being  done ;  but  at  last,  after 
a  few  days,  agreed  to  take  thirty  dollars,  which  would  pay 
for  the  farmer's  travelling  expenses  to  and  from  Maine. 
How  the  poor  fellow  met  the  rest  of  his  expenses,  I  was 
never  told ;  but  he  doubtless  went  back  to  Maine  a 
wiser,  if  not  a  better  man.  (Should  this  article  chance  to 
fall  under  his  eye,  he  can  certainly  do  some  of  his  neigh- 
bors good  by  reading  it  to  them,  and  "  illustrating  "  it  in 
person,  saying,  "  Gentlemen,  /  was  the  man  !  behold  the 
picture  !  and  forever  be  wary  of  lottery  agents.")  I  had 
been  called  in  to  work  up  the  case,  but  the  settlement  was 
effected  the  next  day,  and  it  was  dropped.  Mr.  Wheaton 
had  a  conference  with  the  mayor  concerning  it ;  and  after- 
wards, when,  on  several  complaints  being  made  against 
the  company,  the  mayor  resolved  to  trace  out  the  com- 
pany, and  break  up  their  nefarious  business,  he  sent 
for  me. 

Numerous  efforts  had,  at  times  theretofore,  been  made 
to  hunt  out  these  companies'  dens.  Officers  had  been 
stationed  inside  the  post  office,  and  when  a  clerk  —  usual- 
ly a  rusty,  scampish-looking  lad,  or  an  old  sinner  of  a  man 
—  came  for  the  letters,  and  he  took  them,  he  was  tracked, 
with  the  hope  that  he  could  be  traced  to  the  secret  office. 
But  he  was  too  wary  for  that,  —  had  had  too  good  instruc- 
tions,—  and  escaped  ;  or,  if  next  time  he  was  arrested,  after 
having  been  traced  along  a  circuituous  route,  going  into 
this  or  that  crowded  store,  or  eating-house,  it  would  be 
found  that  he  had  already  disposed  of  the  letters,  having 
adroitly  handed  them  to  one  of  the  "  firm,"  perhaps,  prop- 
erly stationed  at  some  point  for  the  purpose  of  receiving 
them  :  or,  if  he  was  arrested  at  the  post  office  with  the  let- 
ters in  hand,  he  was  found  to  be  an  individual  not  easily 
frightened,  and  when  taken  before  the  mayor,  would  de- 
clare that  he  did  not  know  the  company,  or  the  individuals 
composing  it;  that  some  man,  whose  name  he  did  not 
know,  had  employed  him  at  fifty  cents  or  a  dollar  a  time 
to  draw  the  letters  with  the  box  check  or  card.  If  the 


240  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

mayor  took  away  the  check,  all  the  company  had  to  do 
was  to  write  to  the  postmaster  for  another,  alleging  their 
loss.  Keeping  this  fellow  under  arrest  for  some  length 
of  time  did  no  good.  The  company  readily  found  out 
about  the  arrest,  and  would  send  some  lawyer  to  act  for 
the  clerk,  and  the  result  would  be  that  he  would  be  re- 
leased speedily,  and  go  to  drawing  letters  again.  At- 
tempts had  also  been  made  to  trace  out  the  printers  of  the 
papers  sent  out  by  these  companies.  So  great  were  the 
numbers  of  these  at  times  that  they  seriously  burdened 
the  mails.  The  postage  expenses  to  the  companies 'must 
have  been  enormous:  but  advertising  "tells,"  and  if  only 
one  paper  in  a  hundred  chanced  to  fall  into  the  hands  of 
a  man  who  would  be  allured  thereby  to  invest  in  lottery 
tickets,  the  business  would  pay.  But  after  considerable 
search  for  the  printers,  within  the  city,  it  was  concluded 
that  the  papers  were  printed  somewhere  else,  and  sent  into 
New  York  in  bulk,  and  privately  prepared  for  the  mails. 

This  was  the  situation  of  things  when  I  took  hold  of 
the  matter.  1  was  advised  of  what  had  previously  been 
dune,  but  was,  of  course,  allowed  to  pursue  my  own  method. 
After  a  day  or  two's  experimenting  in  following  clerks 
from  the  post  office,  and  finally  tracking  one  of  them  into 
a  lawyer's  office  on  Nassau  Street,  and  being  coolly  in- 
formed by  the  lawyer  that  the  company  were  his  clients, 
and  having  had  some  difficulty  with  disaffected  parties, 
had  put  their  correspondence  iuto  his  hands  for  a  while, 
I  thought  best  to  pursue  another  course.  There  was 
little  or  no  use  in  attempting  to  convict  him  of  complicity 
with  the  matter.  He  said  he  would  take  his  oath  that  he 
did  not  know  whether  the  company  was  bogus  or  not,  or 
were  really  the  agents  of  responsible  companies  in  foreign 
states;  and  as  for  that  matter  he  did  not  care.  He  had  been, 
he  said,  employed  by  them  to  attend  to  certain  legal  mat- 
ters of  theirs,  and  he  never  inquired  into  the  private  char- 
acter of  his  clients  except  when  necessary.  "  They  pay 
me  well  for  my  services,  generally  advancing  my  fees,  and 


EDITOR  SYKES  USEFUL.  241 

I  am  satisfied."  My  own  opinion  was,  and  is,  that  he  was 
one  of  the  firm  himself,  and  as  guilty  a,s  any  of  the  rest, 
but  he  was  shrewd  enough  to  not  get  trapped.  I  saw  it 
would  cost  more  than  it  would  come  to  to  pursue  that 
line.  If  I  arrested  the  letter  clerks  for  a  few  days,  and 
took  them  before  the  mayor,  that  would  not  break  up  the 
business.  The  company's  plans  were  safely  laid.  When 
I  did  get  at  them,  I  wanted  to  break  them  up  effectually ; 
and  I  set  myself  about  procuring  copies  of  their  papers, 
which  I  did  by  writing  from  the  mayor's  office  to  the  par- 
ties Avho  had  sent  in  their  complaints,  asking  them  to  for- 
ward all  documents  and  papers  which  they  had  received  from 
the  company.  Receiving  these,  I  submitted  them  to  various 
wary  and  knowing  printers,  in  order  to  find  out  at  what 
office  in  the  city  the  printing  was  probably  done.  A  printer 
or  newspaper  man  will  ordinarily  detect,  by  the  size  of  col- 
umn, or  some  other  peculiarity,  from  what  paper  a  given 
extract  has  been  clipped,  as  readily  as  a  tailor  can  tell 
from  whose  shop  a  certain  coat  or  pair  of  pantaloons  came, 
or  as  easily  as  a  man  can  distinguish  the  handwriting  of 
his  friends.  But  in  this  case  I  was  baffled  at  first.  No- 
body could  give  me  any  hint,  till  I  finally  came  across  a 
printer  then  working  in  the  Tribune -office  ;  and  on  looking 
over  some  of  the  papers,  he  discovered  something  which 
reminded  him  of  the  style  of  a  certain  paper  in  Norwich, 
Connecticut ;  and  then,  as  if  a  new  light  had  dawned  upon 
him,  suddenly  exclaimed,  "  By  George  !  I  believe  I  have 

it,  for  I  know  that  at  the  office,  a  year  or  two  ago, 

the  boys  used  occasionally  to  do  a  great  deal  of  extra 
night  work,  and  got  extra  pay.  I  never  knew  what  'twas/' 
In  further  conversation  with  him,  I  concluded  that 
there  must  be  something  in  it,  and  in  a  day  or  two 
posted  off  for  Norwich,  where  I  made  the  acquaintance 
of  a  gentleman  by  the  name  of  Sykes,  then  editor  of  the 
"  Advertiser  "  (I  think  that  was  the  name  of  his  paper), 
and  was  soon  put  in  possession  of  abundant  facts  for  the  then 
present  time.  I  learned  that  the  papers  for  certain  bogus 

10 


242  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

lottery  companies,  to  the  extent  of  several  hundred  thou- 
sand a  month,  were  printed  at  a  certain  office  there,  and 
mailed  through  the  Norwich  post  office ;  that  it  was  a 
matter  of  considerable  pecuniary  profit  to  the  post  office 
to  have  the  mailing  of  these  documents,  and  that  certain 
men  of  much  social  respectability  in  Norwich  were  en- 
gaged in  printing  and  mailing  these  papers,  which  they 
well  knew  to  be  the  circulars  of  bogus  lottery  companies; 
but  I  could  do  nothing  with  them ;  and  exposure  of  their 
conduct  in  Mr.  Sykes's  paper  was  not  likely  to  result  in 
much  good.  The  lottery  papers  reached  parties  who 
would  not  be  apt  to  ever  hear  of  the  exposure ;  besides,  to 
make  it  was  no  part  of  my  business  on  that  occasion.  I 
found,  to  my  satisfaction,  that  whereas  "  G.  W.  Hunting- 
ton  &  Co.'s  Bulletin  "  had  formerly  been  printed  in  Nor- 
wich, and  distributed  from  there  over  the  country ;  that  it 
was  now  doubtless  printed  somewhere  in  New  York,  and 
at  Norwich  I  prepared  my  traps  to  find  out  certainly 
where  the  papers  were  printed  in  New  York,  which  fact 
I  finally  accomplished  after  a  little  delay.  Determining 
about  what  time  of  the  previous  month  the  papers  for  the 
next  month's  issue  would  be  put  to  press,  I  made  business 
to  the  printing  office,  and  gave  the  printers  an  order  a  lit* 
tie  difficult  to  fill,  and  which  I  knew  would  have  to  be  de? 
layed.  I  also  set  a  brother  detective  on  their  track  with 
a  like  affair,  so  that  we  could  have  proper  excuse  for  visit- 
ing  the  office  occasionally.  I  managed  to  privately  secure 
(no  matter  how,  for  somebody  yet  living  might  not  wish 
me  to  tell)  two  or  three  copies  of  the  paper  then  in  pro- 
cess of  being  struck  off.  The  character  of  the  printing 
office  was  high,  the  members  of  the  firm  being  all  what 
are  styled  "  good  fellows/'  not  likely  to  be  in  complicity 
with  the  lottery  pirates,  and  I  was  not  disposed  to  injure 
the  printers;  but  I  was  determined  to  learn  what  parties 
gave  them  the  orders  for  printing  these  papers.  The 
laws  of  New  York  are  a  little  stringent  upon  this  matter, 
and  I  waited  till  I  found  out  that  a  very  large  number  of 


AMONG  THE  PRINTERS.  243 

the  papers  were  struck  off  and  ready  to  be  delivered.  I 
had  learned  that  these  were  usually  sent  off  out  of  the 
office  to  somebody's  care,  but  I  did  not  propose  to  follow 
up  the  parties  as  I  had  done  the  letter  clerks ;  so  one 
morning,  when  all  was  right,  I  took  a  couple  of  regular 
policemen  along  with  me,  and  entered  the  printing  office 
on  Spruce  Street,  and  calling  one  of  the  proprietors  into 
the  counting-room,  advised  him  of  my  business,  and  the 
law  in  the  premises.  He  was  taken  aback ;  turned  a  little 
pale ;  and  protested  that  he  had  no  suspicion  that  he  was 
engaged  in  an  unlawful  business ;  said  they  exercised  no 
secrecy  in  the  printing,  so  far  as  attempting  to  cover  up 
any  offence  was  concerned  ;  but  that  the  lottery  company 
had  asked  them  to  observe  a  degree  of  privacy  in  the 
printing,  on  account  of  their  competition  with  rival  com- 
panies. 

"  But,"  said  he,  "  I  read  a  little  law  once  in  Ohio ;  thought 
I  would  make  a  lawyer,  but  got  sick  of  it ;  and  I  remember 
that  one  of  the  first  things  my  old  instructor,  in  whose 
office  I  read,  taught,  me,  was,  '  Ignorance  of  the  law  ex- 
cuseth  no  man,'  and  we  shall  have  to  bear  the  brunt  of  it, 
I  fear.  Besides,  we  have  a  bill  of  nearly  a  thousand  dol- 
lars against  these  fellows,  and  if  you  break  them  up,  where 
are  we  to  get  our  pay  ?  " 

"  Have  they  been  good  pay  heretofore  ?  " 

"  0,  yes ;  we  let  one  bill  run  on  to  over  fifteen  hundred 
dollars.  I  felt  a  little  skittish  about  it,  but  they  paid  it 
all  up,  and  gave  us  five  hundred  dollars  in  advance  on  the 
next  month's  issue."  I  was  convinced  of  the  gentleman's 
honesty.  I  had  learned  a  good  deal  about  him,  and  hig 
manner  was  that  of  an  honest  man.  "  Well,"  said  I,  "  I'll 
tell  you  what  we'll  do.  You  deliver  these  papers,  but  do-, 
you  let  me  know  precisely  where  they  are  delivered  ^ 
tell  me  the  true  names  of  the  parties  who  order  them; 
give  me  such  '  copy '  as  they  have  sent  in  to  be  printed 
from,  so  that  I  may  be  in  possession  of  their  manuscripts ; 
describe  the  personal  appearance  of  each  of  them  whom 


244  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

you  know,  in  writing,  and  make  a  written  statement  over 
your  own  signature  of  all  your  connection  with  them,  and 
I  will  wait  till  you  get  your  pay  from  them,  if  you  will  stir 
them  up  immediately,  and  promise  to  not  do  any  more  work 
of  this  kind  for  them."  The  gentleman  instantly  replied,  — 

"  That's  fair.  Of  course  we  won't  do  any  more  such 
printing  if  it  ia  illegal :  but  some  of  these  lottery  men  are 
persons  of  great  respectability  in  society,  and  I  am  aston- 
ished to  find  they  are  engaged  in  such  a  nefarious  busi- 
ness, and  I  prefer  to  consult  my  partner  "  (a  much  older 
man),  "before  I  concede  to  your  proposition.  Let  me 
speak  to  him  a  minute,  for  there  he  is,  and  I  will  give  you 
my  answer.  I  prefer  that  he  shall  take  the  responsibility." 

The  gentleman  walked  out  to  where  his  partner  was  en- 
gaged in  looking  over  some  work,  held  a  moment  or  two's 
conversation  with  him,  when  they  both  came  into  the 
counting-room,  and  the  older  gentleman  heard  from  me  my 
story  and  my  propositions,  and  answered  at  once.  "  Of 
course  we  will  accede  to  your  propositions,  and  be  much 
obliged  to  you  for  giving  such  excellent  terms." 

The  propositions  were  specifically  complied  with.  The 
printing-house  got  its  pay  for  its  work  by  refusing  to  de- 
liver it  till  paid  for.  As  the  lottery  agents  were  in  need 
of  the  papers,  and  would  lose  a  month's  revenue  for  want 
of  them,  they  were  obliged  to  yield,  and  pay  up  all  arrear- 
ages, threatening  to  take  their  printing  elsewhere  there- 
after, which  had  been  considerable  ;  but  the  printers  kept 
silent,  and  did  not  even  let  them  know  that  they  had  dis- 
covered they  were  pursuing  an  unlawful  business.  The 
papers  were  duly  delivered  to  the  lottery  men,  and  I  kept 
watch  on  their  private  den,  concluding  that  I  would  not 
disturb  them  till  they  had  gone  to  the  expense  of  wrap- 
ping the  papers,  and  paying  the  postage,  which  must  have 
been  something  enormous.  Whole  bushels*  at  a  time  of 
the  papers  went  to  the  post  office,  and  the  rascals  were 
probably  dreaming  of  the  revenue  which  was  to  follow 
that  month's  laudable  labor.  I  was  willing  that  they 


A  DARK-LANTERN  SEARCH.  245 

should  do  the  government  as  much  service  as  they  pleased 
in  the  way  of  sustaining  the  postal  system,  and  inwardly 
rather  feasted  on  the  "  prospect."  Their  private  den  was 
unoccupied  during  the  night.  Indeed,  they  usually  left  at 
an  early  hour  in  the  afternoon,  save  on  great  mailing  days. 
I  hired  desk  room  in  a  lawyer's  office  in  the  same 
building,  No.  5  Tryon  Row,  close  by  the  courts  of  jus- 
tice, and  within  the  immediate  shadow  of  the  City  Hall,  — 
not  an  inappropriate  locality  for  the  bogus  lottery  scoun- 
drels after  all ;  for  the  common  council  of  New  York  holds 
its  sessions  in  the  City  Hall,  and  there,  too,  is  the  mayor's 
office,  and  that  office  has  sometimes  been  filled  by  as  great 
wretches  as  these  lottery  agents.  Indeed,  I  call  to  mind 
one  mayor  who  made  not  a  little  of  his  large  fortune  in 
the  "  policy  business,"  i.  e.,  in  a  scoundrelly,  though,  in  a 
measure,  legalized  lottery  swindle.  Matsell,  the  old  chief 
of  police,  had  his  rooms  in  the  same  building,  and  had  he 
been  in  office  at  the  time,jvould  have  rejoiced  to  find  these 
"  birds  "  making  their  nest  so  conveniently  near  him.  Hav- 
ing a  desk  in  the  .lawyer's  office,  I  was  of  course  entitled 
to  spend  my  nights  there,  or  as  much  of  them  as  I  pleased  ; 
and  being  next  door  to  the  "  Real  Estate  Office  "  (as  a  sign 
on  the  door  facetiously  intimated),  or,  in  other  words,  the 
private  office  of  "  G.  W.  Huntington  &  Co.,"  I  found  the 
"  patent  lock  "  on  their  door  not  at  all  in  my  way  for  mak- 
ing observations.  With  a  dark  lantern  I  could  select  such 
of  their  correspondence  as  1  pleased,  take  it  to  my  room, 
and  there,  by  a  broad  light,  read  it.  I  got  possession  in 
this  way  of  many  astounding  facts,  and  also  procured 
"  specimens  of  the  handwriting  "  of  several  of  this  honest 
firm — notes  written  to  the  clerks,  giving  orders,  etc.  Some 
of  these  I  preserved  for  future  use,  but  returned  most  of  the 
customers'  correspondence.  There  were  in  their  office  nu- 
merous large  packages  of"  business  "  letters  ;  letters  from 
agents  and  customers — (when  we  took  possession  we  found 
somewhere  about  twenty  thousand  letters,  which  were 
only  a  part  of  what  the  company  had  received  during  their 


246  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

comparatively  short  existence.  They  had  destroyed  great 
numbers,  merely  to  rid  themselves  of  the  incumbrance.) 
I  got  a  pretty  thorough  understanding  of  the  business, 
and  collected  facts  and  names  of  customers  for  future ^v it- 
nesses,  etc.,  to  put  it  quite  out  of  the  question  for  these 
fellows  to  ever  resume  their  business  under  their  then 
title,  after  they  should  be  broken  up ;  and,  all  things  pre- 
pared, kept  watch  so  as  to  catch  one  of  the  proprietors 
in  the  office  at  work.  The  "  Real  Estate  "  department,  in 
which  nothing  at  all  was  done,  was  divided  off  from  the 
lottery  den  by  a  board  partition,  over  the  door  of  which 
was  a  sign  "  Private  Consulting  Office."  Leaving  my  assist- 
ants at  the  door  (and  having  sent  an  officer  to  an  office 
in  115  Nassau  Street,  to  arrest  another  of  the  "proprie- 
tors "  there),  I  went  in  to  see  the  gentleman  on  real  estate 
business ;  and  was  informed  by  the  clerk  that  his  princi- 
pal was  in  the  consulting  room,  and  would  be  out  soon. 
The  clerk  who  had  come  out  from  the  "  consulting  room  " 
as  I  went  into  the  office,  had  closed  the  door  (which  was 
evidently  open  before) ;  and  I  remarked,  that  as  I  was  in  a 
hurry,  I'd  step  in  and  see  the  principal ;  and  suiting  the 
action  to  the  word,  stepped  to  the  door,  when  the  clerk,  — 
a  tall  lad,  of  twenty  years  of  itge,  perhaps,  —  brusquely 
stepped  up  before  the  door,  and  said,  — 

"  You  cannot  enter  here  —  that's  my  orders." 
I  pushed  him  aside  without  saying  a  word,  whistled,  and 
went  in,  and  caught  the  principal  with  pen  in  hand  at  work 
at  a  table,  with  a  pile  of  correspondence  before  him,  while 
at  the  same  time  my  two  men  at  the  door  rushed  in,  and 
I  called  to  them  to  secure  the  clerk,  and  bring  him  into  the 
private  room,  which  they  did.  I  then  stepped  out  of  the 
private  room  and  locked  the  outside  door,  and  returning, 
informed  the  principal  what  I  knew  about  him,  and  so  ter- 
rified him  as  to  extort  from  him  a  full  confession  of  his 
connection  with  the  business.  lie  confessed  that  they 
were  thoroughly  caught,  and  must  be  broken  up ;  which 
conviction  was  soon  deepened,  when  one  of  my  men  an- 


IN  THEIR  DEN.  249 

swering  a  knock  at  the  outside  door,  let  in  an  officer,  accom- 
panied by  another  of  the  principals.  I  took  possession 
of  the  contents  of  the  office,  made  the  parties  deliver  up 
the  mails  for  that  day  and  the  day  before,  (the  money  re- 
ceived from  which  they  still  had  on  hand,)  in  order  to 
refund  the  money  to  the  swindled  parties;  made  them 
give  me  money  enough  to  pay  for  the  requisite  stationery 
and  postage,  all  of  which  I  got  from  them  on  the  spot;  and 
then  took  due  proceedings  against  them  legally,  leaving 
the  office  in  charge  of  one  of  my  men,  till  I  could  get 
around  to  it  and  examine  the  correspondence,  which  was 
in  time  to  be  destroyed.  I  made  these  fellows  advance 
me  money,  too,  to  pay  for  the  rent  of  the  office,  on  which 
a  month's  rent  was  then  due  the  lessor,  and  for  another 
month's  rent.  These  fellows  were  men  in  high  social  posi- 
tion, and  they  tried  hard  to  bribe  me  into  silence,  and 
made  large  and  tempting  offers,  and  promised  also  to  quit 
the  business  forever;  but  I  reminded  them  that  their  very 
offer  was  an  offence  against  the  law,  and  suggested  that 
they  must  not  even  repeat  their  bribes.  There  was  a  third 
member  of  this  honest  farm,  but  the  officer  sent  to  arrest 
him  reported  that  he  was  out  of  town,  to  return  next  day ; 
and  as  we  wanted  him  too,  we  took  good  care  that  his 
friends  should  have  no  opportunity  to  communicate  to  him, 
or  anybody  else  that  day.  I  never  saw  more  "  sore-headed  " 
chaps  than  they.  The  fear  of  exposition  through  the  pub- 
lic press,  was  a  terrible  one  for  them ;  and  as  it  was  com- 
pounding no  felony,  and  was  no  breach  of  law  to  agree  to 
not  give  the  facts  to  the  press,  and  to  let  these  chaps  be 
brought  before  the  proper  officers  and  plead  guilty,  under 
assumed  names,  when  we  should  get  to  that  point,  I  had 
no  hesitancy  in  accepting  for  myself  and  my  men  a  pretty 
large  sum  of  money  from  them.  It  was  true  that  the 
money  gave  me  some  uneasiness,  as  I  reflected  that  it  had 
probably  been  cheated  out  of  poor  victims,  although  the 
rascals  asserted  that  they  had  not  made  much  in  that  way. 
But  their  correspondence  showed  that  they  had.  The 


250  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

third  man  was  arrested  next  day,  and  kept  apart  from  the 
other  two.  He  was  taken  before  the  mayor  under  his  as- 
sumed name,  and  there  made  a  pitiful  confession,  disclosing 
more  than  his  confreres  had  done.  He  was  the  "  scion  of 
a  distinguished  house,"  was  younger  than  the  rest,  and 
had  been  inveigled  into  the  matter  by  the  ambition  to  be 
independent  of  his  father,  and  make  money  for  himself; 
and  having  been  bred  to  no  legitimate  business,  easily  fell 
into  this  in  connection  with  his  cousin,  one  of  the  other 
principals.  The  third  party  is  now  dead.  He  "  reformed," 
and  went  into  a  legitimate  business.  Some  of  the  steps 
we  had  taken  with  these  fellows,  were  rather  bold  ones, 
hardly  within  purview  of  the  law ;  and  the  mayor,  satisfied 
with  the  thorough  work  which  had  been  done,  - —  we  hav- 
ing captured  all  their  correspondence,  their  elaborately- 
kept  journals,  containing  corrected  lists  of  all  their  agents, 
together,  with  quite  a  large  library  of  city  and  business  di- 
rectories, and  a  countless  quantity  of  business  cards,  which 
had  afforded  them  names  to  which  to  direct  their  papers, 
and  schedules  of  "  drawings  to  be  held,"  etc.,  etc.,  the 
mayor  conceived  that  \ite  had  so  effectually  crippled  them, 
that  they  could  not,  seeking  a  new  office,  go  on  with 
their  business ;  and  as  all  he  wished  to  do  was  to  break 
them  up,  he  concluded  to  let  them  go,  on  their  promise 
•  to  not  reenter  upon  the  business  ;  and  turned  to  me,  and 
asked  if  I  did  not  agree  with  him.  I  said,  "  Yes  ;  but  I 
think  there  is  -one  thing  more  which  these  men  owe  to  the 
public,  through  their  victims.  They  have  apparently  a 
plenty  of  money,  and  we  have  their  register  of  correspon- 
dence. My  proposition  is,  that  we  draw  up  a  circular  to 
be  sent  to  all  their  victims,  stating  that  the  firm  is  broken 
up,  and  warning  the  customers  of  the  fraudulent  character 
of  this  and  all  other  such  concerns,  get  a  few  thousand  of 
the  circulars  printed,  and  mail  them  to  each  man  on  their 
books,  and  make  them  bear  the  expense  of  printing,  en- 
veloping, clerk  hire  and  postage,  and  pay  the  clerks  liber- 


UNDOING.  —  A   CIRCULAR.  251 

ally  for  their  work.  They  ought  to  do  this,  to  undo  the 
wrong  they  have  done,  as  far  as  they  can." 

"  Yes,  yes,  gentlemen,  I  like  that  proposition.  What  do 
you  say  to  it  ?  "  said  the  mayor. 

They  were  deathly  silent  for  a  moment ;  looked  askance 
at  each  other  (for  at  this  session  we  had  all  the  three  pres- 
ent) ;  but  one  broke  the  silence  — 

"  It  will  be  a  pretty  big  bill.  I  told  you  the  truth  when 
I  said  we  are  poor;  as  for  myself,  I  am  worth  next  to 
nothing." 

The  mayor  looked  at  me  inquiringly,  and  probably  saw 
something  in  my  face  which  was  as  expressive  as  if  1  had 
said,  "  Bosh  !  they  are  perfectly  able  ;  "  so  he  said,  "  Gen- 
tlemen, I  shall  insist  on  the  condition;  "  and  turning  to  me, 
he  added,  "  make  out  a  liberal  estimate,  and  hold  these  men 
under  arrest  till  you  get  the  sum  advanced.  Mind  !  I  say 
advanced  !  don't  trust  them  for  a  minute." 

The  firm,  seeing  that  it  was  of  no  use  to  quibble,  agreed 
to  meet  the  emergency  that  day ;  and  I,  having  in  the 
course  of  two  hours  found  out  how  much  it  would  cost  to 
print  twenty  thousand  circulars,  and  for  clerk  hire  for  two 
months,  for  two  clerks,  with  postage  added,  at  two  cents  a 
circular,  agreed  to  accept  eight  hundred  dollars,  —  a  pretty 
liberal  sum,  for  I  was  not  disposed  to  oppress  myself  for 
want  of  means,  on  account  of  any  foolish  pity  for  these 
chaps.  The  amount  was  forthcoming,  and  the  scamps  were 
released. 

I  at  once  drew  up  a  circular  in  these  words.  By  the 
way,  I  had  secured  their  engraving  of  the  building,  No. 
23  William  Street,  with  which  the  circular  was  headed  :  — 

"  MAYOR'S  OFFICE,  Ni:w  YORK. 

"  DEAR  SIR:  This  is  to  inform  you  that  the  great '  Bank- 
ing House  of  G.  W.  Huntington  &  Co.,'  —  the  above  pic- 
ture of  which  you  have  doubtless  seen  before,  —  has  'sus- 
pended operations,'  having  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the 
police.  This  house  was  a  bogus  lottery  concern,  which 
15  *10* 


252  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

conducted  its  stealthy  business  iu  an  obscure  den,  while 
pretending  to  occupy  the  building  above  represented,  by 
the  picture  of  which  they  more  readily  enticed  tht?ir 
country  customers  to  'invest'  in  their  shrewdly-devised 
schemes.  If  in  dealing  with  them  you  ever  Hecuml  i 
prize,  it  was  only  given  to  entice  you  into  larger  ventures. 
Beware  of  all  such  companies  in  the  future.  The  mayor 
directs  me  to  advise  you  that  there  are  no  legitimate  lot- 
tery companies  or  agencies  in  the  city  of  New  York.  None 
are  allowed  by  law  to  do  business  here.  All  of  them  are 
bogus  and  fraudulent.  His  honor  the  mayor  further  sug- 
gests that  you  may,  perhaps,  do  your  unwary  neighbors  a 
service,  by  showing  them,  if  you  please,  this  circular, — 
or  by  at  least  informing  them  that  all  such  companies  and 
agencies  in  New  York  are  fraudulent  in  their  character. 
The  mayor  receives  hundreds  of  complaints  during  the 
course  of  a  year  from  the  victims  of  these  companies,  or 
'agencies/  and  a  list  of  all  those  to  whom  this  circular  is 
sent,  is  kept,  and  no  notice  of  the  complaint  of  any  one  of 
these  will  hereafter  be  taken.  The  mayor  trusts  that  you, 
sir,  will  not  only  escape  being  imposed  upon  by  these  bogus 
lottery  sharpers  hereafter,  but  will  so  warn  and  instruct 
all  your  friends  that  they,  too,  will  escape  being  victim- 
ized. Respectfully  yours, 

«  Mayor's  Special  Clerk." 

About  eighteen  thousand  of  these  circulars  were  duly 
mailed  to  the  addresses  found  in  the  captured  books,  and 
the  books  themselves  were  duly  deposited  for  further 
reference.  It  would  seem  that  this  warning,  scattered  as 
it  was  into  more  than  half  the  towns  iu  the  Union,  ought 
to  have  lessened  the  number  of  victims  to  these-swindling 
concerns  •  but  I  have  be«n  informed  that  some  of  them  are 
in  full  blast  to-day,  and  that  all  along,  since  the  arrest  of 
"G.  W.  Huntington  A  Co.,"  other  concerns  carried  on 
heavy  operations.  Everybody,  almost,  it  would  seem, 


OF  HUMAN   CREDULITY.  253 

must  have  personal  experience ;  will  not,  for  some  reason, 
profit  by  the  experience  and  advice  of  others  who  have 
suffered  —  been  bitten  by  sharpers.  But  I  trust  that  this 
article  will  be  heeded  by  all  who  read  it.  Perhaps  it  is  a 
sufficiently  clear  exposition  of  the  way  these  rascals  pro- 
ceeded, to  make  it  evident  that  there  is  no  trusting  the 
pretences  of  any  of  them.  Sure  it  is  that  there  are  at 
least  five  hundred  thousand  people  in  the  land,  who,  if 
they  were  to  read  this  exposition,  could  reflect  that  it 
*  must  be,  as  it  is,  literally  true,  entirely  unembellished  by 
imagination  to  the  extent  of  even  a  word,  and  that,  too, 
from  their  own  experiences  ;  and  they  can  now  understand 
the  modus  operandi  by  which  they  were  swindled. 

All  "  gift  enterprises,"  so  common  in  New  York,  and 
other  places,  to-day,  partake  in  their  nature  of  these  bo- 
gus lottery  operations,  and  no  man  is  safe  who  trusts  a 
single  one  of  them.  He  will  be  swindled  in  the  end,  in 
some  way. 

I  could  not  well  allow  myself  to  cut  this  article  short  at 
this  point,  although  my  tale  is,  properly  speaking,  finished, 
and  my  contract  under  this  head,  with  my  publishers,  ful- 
filled. There  is  something  so  marvellous  in  the  human 
heart  in  the  way  of  its  (disposition  to  adventure  in  order 
to  make  money  easily  ;  such  a  wonderful  credulity  in  the 
minds  of  large  numbers  of  people,  and  a  willingness  to 
fasten  in  trust  upon  the  merest  shadow  of  success,  that 
perhaps  these  fraudulent  concerns  will  never  lack  victims. 
But  in  studying  the  correspondence  which  fell  into  my 
hands,  —  over  twenty  thousand  letters, —  and  with  which  I 
beguiled  many  hours  during  the  six  months  in  which  I 
kept  them,  before  burning  them,  I  became  apprised  of 
the  fact  that  the  great  majority  of  the  "•  customers  "  of 
these  concerns  are  illiterate ;  most  of  their  letters  being 
misspelled ;  that  great  numbers  of  them  were  young 
men,  boys,  and  poor  women ;  nearly  all  evidently  mechan- 
ics, and  from  some  of  the  States,  such  as  Pennsylvania, 
many  farmers.  (Pennsylvania,  by  the  way,  furnishes  more 


254  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

victims  to  petty  frauds,  I  learned,  than  several  other  States 
which  I  might  name,  taken  together.)  She  has  a  large 
number  of  citizens  who  are  barely  able  to  read  and  write 
poorly,  and  who  probably  do  not  road  the  public  journals 
extensively,  and  are,  therefore,  not  likely  to  be  well  in- 
formed of  the  current  iniquities  of  the  time.  I  seriously 
meditated,  after  having  studied  the  "  G.  W.  Huntington  & 
Co."  correspondence,  the  writing  of  a  book  on  the  mat- 
ter of  Swindling,  in  general ;  and  this  correspondence 
would  have  afforded  me  many  pathetic  things  for  comment. 
While  looking  over  that  correspondence,  the  tears  often 
came  irresistibly  to  my  eyes.  I  recollect  the  letter  of  a 
boy  writing  from  Easton,  Penn.,  I  think  it  was.  He  had, 
it  appeared  from  his  letter,  sent  many  dollars  to  the  com- 
pany for  tickets,  a  dollar  at  a  time,  and  winning  nothing 
from  his  ventures,  was  getting  discouraged.  He  wrote  an 
imploring  letter  at  last,  accompanied  by  a  dollar,  in  which 
he  begged  the  company  to  choose  him  a  winning  number. 
He  told  them  it  was  his  last  dollar;  (he  was  but  sixteen 
years  old,  he  said);  that  he  should  not  be  able  to  send 
again,  if  he  failed  this  time,  for  he  had  to  give  every  cent 
he  could  earn ;  (I  forget  what  he  said  he  worked  at,  but  he 
named  the  business  and  the  pitiable  wages  he  got) ;  that 
his  father  was  a  dreadful  drunkard  ;  one  of  his  little  sis- 
ters was  "  sick  all  the  while  ;  "  another  had  broken  her 
leg  two  months  before,  and  the  doctors  thought  she  might 
have  to  lose  it,  and  so  on,  a  pitiable  tale  —  a  tale  to  stir  the 
hardest  heart,  and  written  in  that  style  which  stamped  it 
as  undoubtedly  true.  At  the  bottom  of  this  letter  was  a 
note  for  the  clerk,  in  the  handwriting  of  one  of  the  firm. 
"  Write  to  "  (somebody,  I  forget  his  name,  of  course),  "  at 
Easton,  and  learn  if  this  story  is  true;  and  if  it  is,  let  the 
boy  draw  five  dollars  in  Scheme  No."  (so  and  so.)  There 
was  a  note  dated  some  days  after,  below  this  in  the  clerk's 
hand.  "  Letter  received  from  Easton  ;  story  true ;  ticket 
issued."  Probably  that  boy  re-invested  the  whole  five 
dollars.  Drawing  the  money,  his  hope  would  naturally  be 


WHO   ARE    THE   VICTIMS?  255 

excited ;  and  now  that  he  could  buy  a  ticket  in  a  larger 
"  drawing,"  he  probably  sent  the  five  dollars  back,  and  lost 
them  of  course. 

Widows,  with  large  families,  and  who  wrote  most  mourn- 
ful stories,  sending  on  every  cent  they  could  save  (while 
half-starving  their  families  in  order  to  do  so,  probably), 
were  among  the  number  of  correspondents.  Clergymen 
of  poor  parishes  sent  for  tickets,  with  long  letters,  in  which 
they  commented  piously  upon  the  matter  of  hazard  and  lot- 
teries, in  a  manner  to  excuse  themselves  for  sending,  and 
hoping  that  they  should  draw  something  to  help  them  out 
of  their  poverty  and  misery,  and  expressing  their  belief  that 
"  God  would  pardon  them  if  they  were  doing  wrong," 
were  also  of  the  number.  Many  letters  were  of  a  comical 
nature,  the  writers  half-laughing  at  themselves  for  doing  so 
foolish  a  thing  as  buying  tickets  in  a  lottery  ;  but  yet  una- 
ble to  resist  the  temptation.  By  some  of  the  letters  it  was 
evident  to  me  that  the  writers  told  abominable  lies  about 
their  sufferings  and  trials,  in  order  to  excite  the  sympathy 
of  the  "  agents,"  and  induce  them  to- use  their  best  efforts 
to  secure  for  them  winning  tickets.  Some  of  the  corre- 
spondents offered  to  give  the  "  agents  "  half  their  prize 
money,  in  order  to  bribe  them  to  select  a  successful  ticket. 
Some  of  them  sent  counterfeit  money.  I  found  such  notes 
as  this  at  bottom  of  several  letters,  "  One  dollar  counterfeit, 
two  dollars  good.  Send  tickets  in  Scheme  No.  8."  "  Coun- 
terfeit ;  send  back."  These  were  evidently  directions  to 
clerks.  If  the  writing  in  these  letters  which  contained 
only  counterfeit  money  had  been  good,  I  might  have  sus- 
pected the  writers  of  perpetrating  an  appropriate  joke ; 
but  the  letters  were  evidently  from  ignorant  people,  some 
of  whom,  perhaps,  knew  that  the  bills  they  sent  were 
counterfeit,  and  hoped  that  the  great  banking  company, 
in  their  vast  press  of  business,  would  fail  to  detect  the  billf. 
Many  of  the  letters  were  written  in  excellent  mercantile 
hand;  but  I  noticed  some  badge  of  ignorance  about  all 
these,  as  well  as  about  the  poorly-written  and  miospelled 


256  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

ones!  Probably  ninety-nine  in  a  hundred  of  the  victims 
were  made  such  through  their  ignorance  of  the  world  and 
the  wicked  men  in  it. 

"  Knowledge  is  power  ;  "  not  only  a  power  to  execute, 
but  a  power  for  salvation  ;  and  when  "lier  light  shall  be 
sufficiently  diffused,  all  such  crafts  as  these  bogus  lottery 
swindlers  will  "  have  had  their  day,"  and  not  before.  I 
doubt  somewhat  that  if  all  the  newspapers  of  the  land 
ehould,  on  some  given  week,  publish  each  a  full  expost  of 
these  swindles,  and  repeat  the  same  every  week,  for  a  month, 
the  majority  of  the  victims  would  be  saved.  Many  would; 
but  some  with  their  eyes  opened,  as  far  as  facts  could 
open  them,  would  still  be  duped.  The  investigation  of 
this  bogus  lottery  business  did  more  to  weaken  my  respect 
for  the  good  sense  of  my  fellow-men  in  general,  than  had 
all  the  experiences  of  my  life  theretofore.  But  I  find  I 
am  tempted  on  beyond  the  limits  I  had  set  for  myself  in 
this  article.  The  subject  is  an  interesting  one  to  me,  and 
I  may  return  to  it  at  another  time,  and  to  some  of  its 
phases  not  here  commented  upon. 


THE  BORROWED  DIAMOND  RING. 


!rr/K  0ETECTIVE  OFFICER'S  CHIEF  "  INCUBUS  "  —  AT  WINTER  GARDEN  THEA- 
TKE "HARRY  DUBOIS  "  AN  EXPERT  ROGUE  EXAMINES  HIS  PRO- 
SPECTIVE VICTIMS SOME  SOUTHERNERS HARRY  "  INTRODUCES  "  HIM- 
SELF IN  HIS  OWN  PECULIAR  AND  ADROIT  WAY  —  HARRY  AND  HIS  FRIEND 
ARE  INVITED  TO  THE  SOUTHERNERS*  PRIVATE  BOX HARRY  "BOR- 
ROWS" MR.  CLEMENS'  DIAMOND  RING,  AND  ADROITLY  ESCAPES  —  MY 

UILEMMA  —  VISIT  TO    HARRY'S    OLD    BOARDING    MISTRESS  —  HIS    WHERE- 
ABOUTS   DISCOVERED  —  ACTIVE  WORK A  RAPID  DRIVE  TO  PINE  STREET 

A  FORTUNATE  LIGHT  IN  THE  OFFICE  OF  THE  LATE  HON.  SIMEON  DRATKR 

A  SUDDEN  VISIT  FOR    A    "  SICK    MAN"    TO    HARRY'S    ROOM HOW    EN- 
TRANCE WAS  EFFECTED THE  RING  SECURED HUNT  FOR  MR.  CLKMUN3 

A    SLIGHTLY    MYSTERIOUS    LETTER A    HAPPY    INTERVIEW. 

t>UST  before  the  late  war  broke  out,  and  the  Winter 
Garden  Theatre  being  in  its  prime,  my  friend,  Henry  C.  P., 
of  New  Haven,  Conn.,  being  in  town,  urged  me  to  accom- 
pany him  there  one  night  to  see  the  play.  The  house 
was  quite  crowded  with  a  more  than  usually  fashionable 
set  of  play-goers,  many  being  from  different  parts  of  the 
land,  visitors  for  a  time  in  New  York.  No  matter  where 
I  go,  to  theatre,  court,  or  church,  along  Broadway  crowded 
with  its  vast  moving  tides  of  humanity,  or  through  the 
streets  of  some  half-deserted  hamlet,  my  mind  is  ever  on 
my  business;  rather,  ever  pondering  on  the  craft  and 
crime  of  society,  symbols  of  which,  in  more  or  less  emphat- 
ic shape,  I  am  ever  liable  to  see.  It  is  one  of  the  great- 
est vexations  which  the  detective  suffers,  that  the  nature 
of  his  business  is  such  that  he  can  never  fully  liberate  his 
thoughts  from  dwelling  upon  the  frailties,  the  follies,  and 
particularly  the  crimes,  petty  and  felonious,  of  which  so 
many  of  his  fellow-men  are  constantly  being  guilty.  Like 

267 


258  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

an  incubus  of  dread  and  darkness,  these  thoughts  are  ever 
weighing  on  his  mind.  He  has  no  peace;  and  the  only 
approximate  peace  he  can  win,  is  to  let  his  thoughts  drift 
on  in  the  usual  current,  without  attempting  to  direct 
them  by  his  will.  Consequently,  that  night,  though  for  a 
while  1  enjoyed  the  play,  studying  its  representations  of 
human  nature  with  some  delight,  and  being  not  a  little 
pleased  with  the  beauty  of  sundry  of  the  female  dramatis 
persona?,  who  were  rather  above  the  average  in  personal 
graces,  my  eye  was  wandering  over  the  parquet,  family 
circle,  etc.,  considerably.  Hearing  a  slight  noise  in  a  part 
of  the  gallery.  I  observed  that  three  young  men,  probably 
having  a  "  prior  engagement ''  to  fill  somewhere,  were 
leaving  the  theatre,  —  a  thing  of  no  moment  in  itself,  and 
which  I  should  have  forgotten  on  the  instant,  only  that 
the  vacancy  they  left  enabled  me  to  cast  my  eye  a  little 
farther  on,  when  I  discovered  a  character  of  much  inter- 
est to  me  — a  man  elegantly  apparelled,  and  having  every 
outward  semblance  of  a  gentleman.  At  the  moment  my 
eye  first  rested  on  him  there,  he  was  peering  into  one  of 
the  boxes,  and  I  saw  him  soon  in  the  act  of  whispering 
some  mystery,  apparently,  into  the  ear  of  the  comrade  who 
sat  by  his  side.  The  latter  person  I  did  not  know ;  but 
knowing  the  company  he  was  in,  I  divined  that  some  mis- 
chief was  up,  for  the  former  person  was  no  other  than  a 
man  whom,  in  my  detective  career,  I  had  several  times 
encountered  —  an  elegant,  scheming  fellow,  who  sometimes 
operated  on  Wall  Street,  kept  an  office  at  34  Pine  Street, 
as  a  real  estate  broker  and  money  lender,  etc.,  though  he 
was  seldom  there,  and  was  as  skilful  a  juggler  amf  pick- 
pocket as  any  of  whom  New  York  could  at  that  time 
boast.  I  could  not,  from  my  then  position,  well  see  into 
the  boxes,  ft)  I  changed  my  seat  —  through  the  courtesy  of 
an  old  friend,  who  gave  me  his  in  exchange  for  mine  —  to 
a  point  where  I  could  watch  the  boxes  and  the  two  elegant 
gentlemen,  of  whom  I  have  spoken,  without  the  lattcr's 
knowing  the  fact.  As  1  have  intimated,  the  season  wua 


HARRY   DUBOIS.  259 

gay.  In  one  of  the  boxes  sat  two  gentlemen  and  two 
ladies,  the  former  evidently  Southerners  I  judged,  and  so 
I  thought  the  ladies  to  be  also.  They  were  quite  richly 
dressed,  and  "  sported"  a  large  amount  of  richest  jewelry. 
I  was  not  at  a  loss,  as  soon  as  I  had  enjoyed  a  good  view 
of  them,  as  to  the  nature  of  the  special  concern  which  they 
had  evidently  awakened  in  the  minds  of  the  two  worthies 
whom  I  was  watching.  I  felt  very  sure  that  some  plan 
was  being  devised  by  the  latter  two  to  make  the  acquaint- 
ance of  the  gentlemen,  and,  perhaps,  the  ladies  in  the  box, 
with  an  eye  to  relieving  them  of  some  of  their  jewelry 
or  money. 

"  Harry  Dubois  "  was  one  of  the  aliases  of  the  elegant 
rogue ;  his  friend's  name  I  knew  not,  and  have  never 
learned  it.  I  was  not  surprised  then,  when,  after  a  little 
polite  leave-taking  at  the  end  of  an  act,  and  the  gentlemen 
left  their  ladies  in  the  box,  to  see  Harry  and  friend  leave 
their  seats,  and  saunter  out.  Divining  that  the  gentlemen 
had  gone  into  the  refreshment-room,  I  followed,  disguising 
myself  as  I  went  out,  by  the  assumption  of  a  pair  of  spec- 
tacle bows,  to  which  was  attached  a  false  nose  quite  unlike 
my  own,  in  order  that  Harry  might  by  no  means  discover 
me.  I  arrived  in  the  refreshment-room,  and  had  selected 
out  my  friends  of  the  box  before  Harry  and  his  friend,  or 
"  pal,"  came  in.  I  had  prepared  my  mind  to  expect  some 
peculiarly  stealthy,  circumlocutory  proceeding  upon  the 
part  of  Harry.  Perhaps  he  would  come  only  to  "  watch  and 
wait "  still  longer ;  perhaps  he  would  find  there  somebody, 
also,  who  knew  the  gentlemen  of  the  box,  and  get  a  formal 
introduction.  Indeed,  I  had  conceived  a  half  dozen  modes 
of  operation  on  his  part,  when,  to  my  astonishment,  Harry, 
having  first  cast  a  searching  glance  over  the  room,  and 
giving  his  "  pal"  a  knowing  touch  on  the  elbow,  rushed, 
with  all  smiles  upon  his  face,  up  to  the  apparently  elder 
of  the  gentlemen  of  the  box,  who  were  at  this  moment 
lifting  glasses  of  wine  to  their  lips,  and  exclaimed,  "  Par- 
doii  me,  Mr.  Le  Franc  ;  but  how  do  you  do  ?  I  am 


260  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

exceedingly  glad  to  see  you !  How  long  have  you  been 
on  from  New  Orleans,  my  dear  sir  ?  " 

The  gentleman  addressed  looked  with  astonishment  upon 
the  elegantly  attired  Harry,  whose  face  was  the  symbol  of 
the  frankest  honesty  and  most  certain  refinement,  and  evi- 
dently "  taken  "  by  Harry's  manner,  replied,  "  My  dear  sir, 
there's  a  mistake  here,  for  my  name  is  not  Le  Franc ;  and 
truly,  sir,  I  can  never  have  known  you,  for  I  surely  do  not 
now,  and  if  I  had  I  should  never  have  forgotten  you." 

"  Upon  my  honor,"  said  Harry,.!  thought  you  were  a 
Mr.  Le  Franc,  of  New  Orleans.  You  look  just  like  him, 
with  whom,  and  others,  I  went  on  an  excursion  up  to  Don- 
aldsonville,  three  years  ago,  at  the  invitation  and  expense 
of  Bob  McDonald." 

"Bob  McDonald?  Why,  he's  my  cousin,  sir.  If  you 
know  him,  give  me  your  hand.  My  name,  sir,  is  William 
Hale,  of  Savannah,  and  this  is  my  cousin,  Mr.  Clemens,  of 

Mobile"  (turning  to  his  friend),  "Mr. Ah!  excuse 

me,  but  you  have  not  given  me  your  name,  sir,  I  forgot." 

Fully  pleased,  Harry  pulled  out  a  card  case  from  his 
vest  pocket,  and  presented  to  Mr.  Hale  a  neat  card,  in- 
scribed :  — 

HENRY   CLARKSON    DUBOIS, 
ATTORNEY  AT  LAW. 

Specialty  —  Dealing  in  Real  Estate,  Effecting  Loans,  and 
Securing  Advances  on  Cotton. 

Office,  34  Pine  Street,  N.  Y.  City. 

"  Pardon  me  that  I  give  you  my  business  card ;  I  find 
I  have  no  other  about  me." 

"  Ah,  Mr.  Dnbois !  I  am  sure  I  am  very  glad  to  know 
you  as  Bob  McDonald's  friend.  Tell  me  when  you  last 
saw  him.  How  was  he  ?  Jolly  fellow  —  isn't  he  ?  Take 
some  wine  with  us?  and  your  friend,  too;  he'll  join  us?" 


RAPID   PROGRESS.  261 

Harry  was  nothing  loth  to  accept  the  wine.  He  was 
making  splendid  progress,  he  doubtless  thought ;  and  join- 
ing in  the  wine,  he  said,  "  You  asked  when  I  last  saw 
Bob.  Well,  when  he  was  here  in  New  York,  three  months 
ago,  on  his  way  to  Hamilton,  Canada,  he  was  my  guest  for 
a  week,  at  the  Metropolitan,  where  I  board." 

"  Just  so,"  said  Mr.  Hale.  "  Bob  wrote  us  at  that  time 
from  Canada.  I  am  sorry  I  did  not  go  on  there  when  he 
was  there.  He  was  well  as  usual  then,  I  suppose,  and  just 
as  full  of  the  '  Old  McDonald  '  "  (for  his  father  was  a  great 
old  sport)  "  as  ever,  eh  ?  " 

I  saw  that  Harry  was  making  smooth  inroad  into  the 
affections  of  these  gentlemen,  and  wondered  what  would 
be  the  result.  Mr.  Hale  treated  to  cigars.  Harry  re- 
fused, saying,  that  with  permission  he  would  smoke  a 
cigarette,  —  pulling  a  box  from  his  pocket, —  commented 
on  the  habit  which  he  had  learned  in  Cuba,  when  he  was  at- 
tached, as  he  said,  to  the  United  States  legation  there,  and 
quite  took  the  Savannah  gentleman  aback  with  his  delicate 
manipulation  of  the  dainty  cigarette.  Harry's'  mastery  of 
good  manners  seemed  to  completely  win  the.  Southern 
gentlemen,  and  Harry's  friend  too,  though  less  elegant 
than  he,  was  no  "  slouch  "  of  a  fellow  in  appearance. 

The  next  act  of  the  play  had  begun  before  the  gentle- 
men had  finished  their  cigars  and  chat,  and  Mr.  Hale  said 
to  his  friend  Clemens,  "  Wouldn't  Mary  be  delighted  to 
meet  so  intimate  a  friend  of  her  cousin  Bob  ?  Mr.  Diibois, 
I  spoke  of  McDonald  as  my  cousin ;  so  he  is  by  marriage  ; 
but  he  is  cousin  by  blood  to  my  wife,  and  she  likes  him 
above  all  her  kin.  Wouldn't  you  and  your  friend  do  us 
the  honor  to  accompany  us  to  our  box,  where  our  wives 
now  are  ?  " 

"  With  the  greatest  pleasure,"  said  Harry,  suiting  the 
action  to  the  word,  and  away  they  started  for  the  box.  I 
losi  no  time  in  getting  back  to  my  seat,  on  the  way  de- 
positing my  spectacles  and  false  nose  in  a  side  pocket. 

From  what  I  afterwards  learned  from  Mr.  Hale,  he 


262  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

delightedly  presented  Harry  to  his  wife,  as  an  intimate 
friend  of  her  cousin  Bob ;  and  it  was  evident  to  me  that 
Harry  was  making  as  sure  victory  of  the  esteem  of  Mrs. 
Hale,  and  the  other  lady,  Mrs.  Clemens,  as  he  had  of  their 
husbands.  He  laughed  and  chatted  with  the  ladies  to  thi'ir 
evident  delight.  They  could  not  have  heard  much  of  the 
second  act,  so  busily  were  they  engaged  with  him  —  gen- 
tlemen and  ladies  both.  I  noticed  that  Harry  was  not 
lacking,  on  that  occasion,  in  a  good  degree  of  effrontery, 
mingled  with  his  polite  manners,  which  fact  was  assurance 
to  me  that  he  had  formed  some  plan  of  operations  already, 
but  what  it  would  be  I  could  not  conjecture.  I  saw  more 
or  less  display  of  jewelry.  Harry  taking  a  splendid  solitaire 
diamond  from  his  finger,  and  evidently  telling  some  story 
about  it.  But  eventually,  as  the  act  was  drawing  to  a 
close,  I  discovered  that  Mr.  Clemens  had  taken  from  his 
finger  a  very  costly  ring,  which,  as  the  sequel  proved,  he 
had  bought  at  Anthony's  the  day  before,  for  fifteen  hun- 
dred dollars,  to  take  as  a  present  to  his  brother,  then 
studying  medicine  in  Harvard  College,  whither  Mr.  Clem- 
ens and  his  lady  were  about  going.  All  was  very  jubi- 
lant in  the  box  as  the  act  drew  to  a  close,  and  there  was 
a  clatter  in  the  box  —  the  gentlemen  laughing,  and  the 
ladies  shaking  their  fans  at  them,  as  if  half  menacingly 
forbidding  them  to  go  out,  evidently  begging  them  to 
stay,  and  so  forth.  But  Harry,  according  to  the  story  I 
learned  afterwards,  kindly  assured  the  ladies  that  he 
would  return  with  his  new  "  charge  "  all  duly  and  "  sound- 
ly," which  the  ladies  interpreted  to  mean  soberly,  and 
they  let  them  go. 

Harry  left  the  box,  the  last  of  the  gentlemen,  and  as  he 
did  so,  foolishly  waved  his  hand  in  parting,  at  the  ladies; 
and  the  mystery  was  at  once  unravelled  to  me,  for  on  his* 
finger  was  what  I  took  to  be,  knew  to  be,  that  new,  flash- 
ing ring  of  Mr.  Clemens. 

1  hastened  to  the  refreshment-room.  I  saw  at  once  the 
flush  of  victory  on  Harry's  face,  and  watched  him  intently. 


THE  RING  BORROWED.  263 

He  was  very  brilliant  in  conversation,  and  very  gener- 
ous; insisted  on  "  treating  "  all  the  while  himself.  Wouldn't 
allow  Mr.  Hale  or  his  friend  to  call  for  anything,  etc. 

The  time  for  the  next  act  coming  on,  the  gentlemen,  not 
a  little  "  warmed  up  "  with  the  numerous  glasses  of  wine 
they  had  taken,  returned  to  their  box,  and  I  to  my  place, 
replacing  my  spectacles  in  my  side  pocket. 

I  had  been  a  little  delayed  in  getting  back  to  my  place 
by  a  crowd  gathered  around  a  lady  who  had  fainted,  and 
when  I  resumed  my  seat,  and  looked  into  the  box,  what 
was  my  astonishment  at  not  finding  Harry  there.  I  saw 
that  Mrs.  Clemens  was  very  serious  about  something, 
while  the  rest  seemed  very  much  excited ;  meanwhile, 
Harry's  friend  seemed  engaged  in  some  sort  of  wonder- 
looking  protestations,  for  he  looked  astonished,  and  was 
putting  one  hand  very  emphatically  upon  the  palm  of  the 
other.  The  whole  thing  flashed  upon  me.  I  saw  that 
there  was  no  time  to  lose ;  and  I  left  my  seat,  and  pro- 
ceeded directly  to  the  refreshment-room,  in  time  to  find 
Mr.  Hale  and  his  friend  there,  eagerly  inquiring  of  the 
bar-keeper  if  "  Mr.  Dubois  "  had  returned  there  ;  if  he  had 
seen  him  since  they  went  up  last  time  to  the  box,  and 
sundry  other  hurried  queries.  The  bar-keeper  had  not 
seen  him ;  no  clew  could  they  get  to  him ;  and  Mr.  Hale 
said,  "  Clemens,  you  are  '  done  for/  sure.  That's  one  of 
those  arch  scamps  we  read  of.  He's  borrowed  that  ring, 
and  we'll  never  see  it  again." 

"  Let's  find  a  policeman,  and  put  him  on  the  track,"  said 
Clemens. 

"Foolishness,"  said  Mr.  Hale;  "no  policeman  can  track 
that  fellow.  He's  too  keen  ;  besides,  who  knows  but  he'll 
take  the  train  for  Philadelphia  or  somewhere.  I  don't  be- 
lieve he  lives  here.  Here's  his  card,  to  be  sure,  but  who 
knows  that  it's  not  a  fraud  ?  Let's  hunt  the  directory." 
and  the  bar-keeper  brought  forward  the  desired  directory. 
No  "  Harry  Clarkson  Dubois  "  was  to  be  found  in  it.  The 
gentlemen  looked  confounded  and  dejected,  and  Hale  said, 


2Gt  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

"  Well,  Clemens,  let's  go  back  to  the  ladies.  They've  more 
wit  than  we.  You  know  what  your  wife  said.  If  we'd 
taken  her  advice  perhaps  we  should  have  got  out  from  here 
in  time  to  catch  the  villain,"  and  so  they  sauntered  back. 

I  did  not  feel  like  making  myself  known  to  them.  They 
might  take  me,  perhaps,  as  Harry's  cooperator,  and  so  I 
silently  watched  them  leave.  Turning  the  matter  over  in 
my  mind  a  moment,  I  resolved  upon  the  best  course  to 
pursue.  Harry  must  be  come  upon  that  night  if  I  were 
to  succeed  with  him,  I  saw.  I  had  known  his  lodging- 
room  three  months  before,  but  had  heard  he  had  changed 
quarters ;  where  to  hunt  him  was  the  point.  I  bethought 
me  of  a  boarding-house  keeper  in  West  13th  Street,  with 
whom  Harry  once  boarded,  and  who,  not  knowing  his  real 
character,  had  great  respect  for  him,  and  whom,  too,  Harry 
evidently  really  respected,  for  I  had  been  told  that  he  al- 
ways spoke  of  her  in  terms  of  admiration.  I  fancied  she 
would  be  as  apt  as  any  one  to  know  where  were  his  quar- 
ters, and  I  took  a  carriage,  and  drove  immediately  to  her 
house.  Fortunately  she  was  at  home ;  and  on  inquiring 
of  her  if  she  could  tell  me  where  I  could  find  Mr.  Dubois 
the  next  morning,  for  I  did  not  let  her  know  my  haste, 
she  said  that  she  guessed  I'd  be  most  apt  to  find  him  in 
his  oflice  in  Pino  Street,  No.  34  ;  that  he  had  applied  to 
her  for  board  two  days  before,  with  which  she  could  not 
accommodate  him  for  a  week  or  so  to  come ;  so  he  said  ho 
would  sleep  on  a  lounge  in  his  office,  and  take  his 'meals 
out  till  she  could  give  him  quarters,  and  that  the  day  be- 
fore he  sent  up  for  blankets,  with  which  she  had  supplied 
him. 

My  plan  was  complete.  Hurrying  away  from  her  house, 
I  ordered  the  driver  to  push  straight  for  my  rooms,  where, 
arming  myself  completely,  I  drove  on  as  far  as  the  post 
office,  when,  ordering  the  driver  to  await  my  return,  I 
alighted,  and  proceeded  to  31  Pine  Street.  As  it  chanced, 
next  door  was  the  office  of  my  friend,  the  late  Simeon 
Draper,  and  I  was  not  a  little  pleased  to  find  a  light  there, 


A   MIDNIGHT   ARREST.  2G7 

and  one  of  his  clerks  and  another  man  looking  over  some 
papers,  as  I  saw  through  the  window.  Tapping  on  the 
door,  it  was  readily  unlocked,  and  I  said  to  the  clerk,  who 
recognized  me,  "  No  questions  asked  ;  but  let  me  inquire 
if  you  are  going  to  be  here  for  fifteen  minutes  longer?" 

"  Yes,  for  an  hour,  perhaps." 

"  Well,  I  may  call  again." 

"  Do  so  —  are  you  after  a  '  bird '  ?  "  asked  the  clerk,  with 
a  knowing  wink  in  his  eye ;  for  he  very  quickly  divined 
that  I  was  on  some  detective  mission ;  for  Mr.  Draper  had 
been  a  frequent  patron  of  mine,  and  often  sent  this  clerk 
to  me  on  business. 

I  closed  the  door,  and  ran  up  two  flights  of  stairs  to 
"  Dubois's  "  room,  and  immediately  rapped  upon  the 
door. 

No  noise  within  —  all  silence!  Had  the  bird  flown? 
I  thought  not.  I  believed  he  was  there.  Again  I  rapped. 

"  Who's  there  ?  "  asked  a  half-sleepy  voice. 

1  replied,  "0!  you're  asleep,  Mr.  Dubois  —  are  you? 
Well,  no  matter.  It's  a  case  of  exigency.  I  knew  you 
were  here ;  saw  you  as  you  came  in ;  and  there's  a  man 
fainted  away  in  Draper's  office,  and  I'm  alone  with  him, 
and  want  you,  if  you  will,  to  watch  him  while  I  run  for  a 
doctor.  Don't  mind  to  dress  yourself  more  than  half —  come 
quickly,"  and  I  started  away  rapidly  down  stairs,  and  re- 
turned as  rapidly,  and  rapping  on  the  door  again,  exclaimed, 
"  Get  ready,  and  run  down  as  quick  as  you  can,  while  I  go 
for  a  doctor.  The  door's  unlocked ;  but  see  here,  he  may 
revive,  and  want  some  stimulus.  Here's  the  key  to  the 
back  closet.  There's  a  bottle  of  brandy  there.  Here, 
take  it," 

The  unsuspicious  Harry  opened  the  door  slightly  to  take 
the  key,  when  I  pushed  in.  On  his  finger  gleamed  that 
very  ring.  He  was  but  half  dressed,  coat  off,  a  muscular 
fellow,  and  just  in  trim  for  fighting.  I  saw  the  situation, 
and  pulling  out  a  pistol,  clapped  it  to  his.  face,  and  extend- 
ing my  left  hand,  said,  "  It's  no  use,  Harry ;  give  me  Mr. 


268  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

Clemens'  ring  without  any  noise,  or  I'll  cull  the  officers  at 
the  door  below." 

Harry  was  never  before  so  confounded  ;  protested  he  had 
no  ring  but  his  own.  , 

"  We'll,  see,"  said  I.  "  Mr.  Hale  will  be  here  in  a  mo- 
ment. If  he  comes,  it's  all  da'y  with  you.  He  can  identify 
the  ring,  and  —  so  —  can  —  I.  Give  it  to  me  at  once  !  "  I 
exclaimed,  with  a  stern  voice. 

Harry  saw  that  I  knew  all  about  it,  and  yielded,  begging 
me  to  not  expose  him.  I  assured  him  I  had  no  care  to 
do  so  ;  but  should  exact  of  him  the  expenses  I  had  incurred 
for  the  carriage,  which,  at  that  time  of  night,  would  be 
about  fifteen  dollars ;  which  he  quickly  took  from  out  a 
large  sized  roll  of  bills  from  his  inner  vest  pocket.  The 
gas  he  had  lighted  when  he  rose  to  dress,  was  turned  on 
at  full  head,  and  gleamed  like  a  spectre  through  the  room. 
I  examined  the  money  to  see  that  it  was  not  counterfeit, 
.put  it  in  my  pocket,  and  bade  Harry  "  good  night,"  telling 
him  I  guessed  the  man  in  Draper's  had  recovered  by  this 
time,  and  that  he  needn't  trouble  himself  to  go  down. 

I  drove  to  my  rooms,  paid  the  driver,  and  having  de- 
posited the  ring  in  my  little  safe,  went  to  bed,  and  pon- 
dered on  the  next  step  —  the  finding  of  Mr.  Clemens  next 
day.  I  arose  rather  early  next  morning,  and  went  in 
search.  I  expected  to  find  him  and  his  friends  at  some 
of  the  prominent  hotels  ;  but  they  were  not  there  to  be 
found,  but  had  left  the  St.  Nicholas  some  three  days  be- 
fore, and  where  gone  nobody  knew.  But  the  coachman 
would  know  where  he  took  them.  After  waiting  hours  to 
find  the  coachman,  I  at  last  learned  that  they  had  all  gone 
to  a  house  in  Madison  Square,  to  which  I  proceeded,  and 
found  it  the  private  residence  of  one  of  our  prominent 
citizens.  The  parties,  therefore,  were  evidently  of  the 
elite,  and  were  to  be  approached  delicately.  Perhaps  they 
hadn't  told  their  friends  of  their  loss,  and  from  pride  might 
not  want  it  known.  How  should  I  proceed?  Well,  I 
rung  the  bell,  and  inquired  of  the  servant  if  a  Mr.  Clemens 


IN   SEARCH  OF   THE   VICTIMS.  269 

was  stopping  there ;  and  learned  that  he  was,  but  that  he 
and  his  wife  had  gone  out,  and  would  not  be  back  till  even- 
ing. "  Was  a  Mr.  Hale  there  ?  "  "  Yes ;  but  he,  too,  and  his 
wife  have  gone  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Clemens."  I  didn't  want 
the  ring  about  me.  I  had  pressing  work  to  do  that  day 
and  that  evening  ;  in -fact,  I  hardly  knew  whether  I  should 
have  time  to  call  that  evening  or  not.  So  I  asked  the 
servant  if  he  could  provide  mo  envelope  and  paper,  for  I 
would  leave  a  note  for  my  friends.  I  was  ushered  s  into 
the  library,  and  given  the  due  materials  ;  and  addressing 
a  note  to  Mr.  Hale,  which  ran  much  as  follows :  — 

"  SIR  :  I  have  not  the  pleasure  of  your  personal  acquaint- 
ance, but  the  fact  that  I  am  the  true  friend  of  your  cousin, 
Mr.  Robert  McDonald,  of  New  Orleans,  will  be  all  the  as- 
surance, I  presume,  that  you  will  want  of  my  being  en- 
titled to  an  audience  with  you.  I  have  called  to  see  you 
upon  interesting  and  important  business,  and  finding  that 
you  are  not  to  return  till  evening,  I  beg  to  ask  you  to  ex- 
pect me  at  half  past  eight  o'clock.  Do  not,  if  }~ou  please, 
by  any  means  fail  to  be  at  home.  I  would  also  be  pleased 
to  meet  Mr.  Clemens  ;  and  I  trust  you  will  not  consider  me 
impertinent  (and  you  will  not  when  you  come  to  learn  my 
errand),  if  I  ask  also  to  meet  Mrs.  Hale  and  Mrs.  Clemens 
at  the  same  time. 

"  I  would  prefer  to  meet  none  of  the  family  residing  here, 
but  yourselves  alone. 

"  Yours,  very  respectfully, 


I  hurried  through  my  business  for  the  remainder  of  the 
day,  and  a  little  before  half  past  eight  was  duly  at  the 
house  on  Madison  Square. 

Being  admitted,  I  called  for  Mr.  Hale.  Ho  came  to  see 
me  in  the  hall ;  looked  at  me  mysteriously ;  was  very  civil 
and  polite,  but  coldly  so.  I  said,  "  I  left  a  note  here  to- 
day for  you." 

16  11 


270  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

"  Yes,  sir,  I  received  a  curious  note,  and  don't  know 
what  to  make  of  it.  Please  explain  your  business.  We 
are  strangers,  and  you  will  excuse  me  that  I  am  always 
cautious  with  strangers,  whoever  they  may  be." 

He  had  evidently  taken  the  lesson  of  the  night  before 
to  heart. 

"But,"  asked  I,  "are  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Clemens  ready  to 
receive  me,  as  I  requested  in  my  note  ?  " 

"  Yes,  and  Mrs.  Hale  too." 

"  Can  I  see  them  all  immediately,  for  I've  but  little  time 
to  spare  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sir,"  said  he,  quite  rigidly  ;  "  follow  me,  sir." 

I  followed  him  to  a  small  side  parlor,  where  sat  Mr. 
Clemens  and  the  two  ladies. 

"  This  is  the  gentleman  who  left  the  note  here  to-day, 
and  says  he  knows  Bob  McDonald,"  said  Mr.  Hale,  as  ho 
bowed  me  to  a  chair,  and  cast  a  furtive  glance  at  his 
friends  as  he  spoke  McDonald's  name. 

"  Pardon  me,  sir,"  I  broke  in.  "  I  did  not  say  that  I 
knew  Mr.  McDonald,  but  that  I  was  a  '  true  friend  ;  of  him, 
as  you'll  observe  on  looking  at  the  note,  if  you  have  it, 
and  as  I  guess  I  shall  prove." 

u  0,  then  you  don't  know  my  cousin,  Mr.  McDonald  ?  " 
asked  Mrs.  Hale.  "  I  am  glad  you  do  not,  sir,  for  I  was 
beginning  to  fear  you  if  you  did.  We've  seen  one  of  cous- 
in's friends  here  of  late  to  our  regret." 

"  Well,  ladies  and  gentlemen,"  said  I,  "  I'll  make  my 
etory  short.  You  have,  indeed,  had  occasion  to  regret 
meeting  one  of  Mr.  McDonald's  pretended  friends.  Per- 
haps he  does  know  him  too,  personally.  But  I  do  not;  and 
I  am  a  '  true  friend  '  to  Mr.  McDonald,  in  that  I  would 
serve  his  friends  as  he  would  desire  to  have  me,  if  he 
knew  your  late  loss." 

There  were  glances  from  the  eyes  of  each  into  those  of 
the  others  —  a  momentary  silence  and  wonder-looking  — 
when  Mrs.  Cletnene  tremulously  exclaimed,  "  Why,  sir,  do 
you  know  all  about  it  ?  Have  you  found  the  ring  ?  " 


TELLING   ALL   ABOUT   IT.  271 

"  Foolish  woman  !  "  said  Mr.  Clemens.  "  How  do  ycu  sup- 
pose anybody  could  find  what  wasn't  lost — only  stolen?" 

"But  I  have  something  here  for  you,  sir,"  said  I,  as  1 
took  the  ring  from  my  pocket,  and  held  it  up  in  the  light. 

"  The  same  !  "  "  That's  it !  "  "  Where  did  you  get  it  ?  " 
"  Did  lie  lose  it,  and  you  find  it  ?  "  "  How  glad  I  am  !  "  etc., 
burst  from  tfieir  excited  lips. 

"  Be  calm,  and  I'll  tell  you  all  about  it,"  said  I ;  and  taking 
their  seats,  for  all  had  risen  to  their  feet,  they  listened  at- 
tentively to  my  story.  I  told  them  my  business ;  how  I 
came  to  notice  them;  all  that  I  did  —  all  except  what  tran- 
spired in  Pine  Street,  making  a  short  tale  of  that. 

I  had  handed  the  ring,  as  I  commenced  my  story,  to  Mr. 
Clemens,  who  placed  it  upon  a  book  lying  on  the  table- 
where  it  lay  throughout  our  discourse,  which  was  carried 
on  for  nearly  an  hour.  Near  the  conclusion,  Mr.  Clemens 
said,  "  But  after  all  this  I  do  not  feel  that  the  ring  is  yet 
justly  mine.  You  have  earned  a  part  of  it,  at  least,  and  I 
wish  you  to  tell  me  how  much  I  shall  pay  you  for  your 
trouble.  I  should  have  lost  the  ring  wholly  but  for  your 
and  I  am  willing  to  pay  you  half  its  value,  seven  hundred 
and  fifty  dollars." 

"  0,  no,"  said  I,  "  I  could  not  for  a  moment  consent  to 
take  so  much.  In  fact,  I  would  have  no  right  to." 

"  Well,  name  the  price." 

"  If  you  give  me  fifty  dollars  I  shall  be  satisfied." 

"  No  such  pallry  sum,  sir,"  said  the  generous  Southerner, 
"  You  shall  take  double,  yes,  four  times  that,  at  least." 

"  Yes,"  said  Mr.  Hale,  "  and  I'll  gladly  pay  half  of  it,  or 
the  whole  of  it,  or  double  it,  and  make  it  four  hundred." 

But  I  insisted  upon  only  one  hundred ;  and  paying  me 
that,  Mr.  Clemens  restored  the  ring  to  his  finger,  saying, 
"  The  next  time  I  allow  a  stranger,  no  matter  whose  friend 
he  is,  to  ft-ifle  with  my  property,  I  shall  know  it,  I  reckon. 
It's  been  a  good  lesson,  cheaply  bought,  for  me." 

Business  over,  these  cheerful  people  insisted  upon  en- 
tertaining me  till  a  late  hour,  and  I  recited  to  them  some 


272  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

quaint  instances  in  the  detective's  life  ;  but  they  could 
not  but  think  that  their  adventure  in  New  York  had  been 
the  most  remarkable  of  all. 

I  dare  say  that  the  lesson  they  learned  that  night  will 
serve  them  through  life ;  and  although  their  loss  was  so 
stupidly  occasioned  that  I  presume  they  keep  it  secret 
as  to  themselves,  I've  no  doubt  they  sometimes  tell  it,  in 
the  third  person,  as  a  warning  to  their  friends  who  may  bo 
"  going  abroad,  travelling/' 

It  is  a  trite  saying,  that  "  'tis  not  all  gold  that  glitters.1' 
Everybody  has  heard  it,  and  repeated  it,  but  few  only 
profit  by  it. 


THE  MYSTERY  AT   NO.  89 
NEW  YORK. 


"KLEPTOMANIA  — THE  TENDENCY  TO  SUPERSTITION  —  AN  OLD  KNICKER- 
BOCKKR  FAMILY  —  A  VERY  "  PROPER"  OLD  GENTLEMAN,  A  MR.  GARRET- 
SON —  HE  CALLS  ON  ME  AT  MY  OFFICE,  AND  FINDS  A  CURIOUS-LOOKING 

ROOM  —  HIS      STORY     OF  .WONDERS  —  "  EVERYTHING  "     STOLEN  —  TALK 

ABOUT     DISEMBODIED     SPIRITS THE     MYSTERY     DEEPENS PROBABLE 

CONJECTURE     BAFFLED VISIT      TO     MR.      GAUKETSON'S     HOUSE  —  MRS. 

GARRET8ON,  A    BEAUTIFUL     AND     CULTIVATED     OLD    LADY  WE    SEARCH 

THE    HOUSE AN  ATTIC    FULL    OF    OLD  SOUVENIRS  —  WE    LINGER    AMONG 

THEM  —  MR.  GARRETSON'S  DAUGHTER  is  CONVINCED  THAT  DISEMBODIED 

SPIRITS  ARE  THEIR  TORMENTORS  —  SHE  PUTS  AN  UNANSWERABLE  QU»>- 
TION  —  A  DANGEROUS  DOG  AND  THE  SPIRITS  TEDIOUS  AND  UNA- 
VAILING WATCHING  FOR  SEVERAL  DAYS  AND  NIGHTS THE  "SPIRITS" 

AGAIN  AT  WORK RE-CALLED THE  MYSTERY  GROWS  MORE  WONDER- 
FUL—  THE  "SPIRIT"  DISCOVERED  AND  THE  MYSTERY  UNRAVELLED  — 
THE  FAMILY  SENT  AWAY  —  THE  ATTIC  RE-VISITED  WITH  MR.  G.  AND 

ITS    TREASURES     REVEALED A     HE-DISCOVERY     OF     THE    "  SPIRITS  "  — 

THE  FAMILY  REVIEW  THEIR  LONG-LOST  TREASURES  FOUND  — REFLEC- 
TIONS ON  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  MYSTERY  —  A  PROBLEM  FOR  THE 
DOCTORS. 

"KLEPTOMANIA,"  the  delicate  term  of  modern  co'nage  from 
tlie  old  Greek,  which  is  used  to  signify  a  passion  for  thiev- 
ing under  peculiar  circumstances,  and  is  mostly  used  when 
the  thief  is  a  person  of  some  importance  and  of  moneyed 
means,  so  that  the  lust  for  gain  is  not  supposed  to  be  his 
prompter  to  the  "offence  against  the  statute  in  such  cases 
made  and  provided,"  indicates  a  moral  "  dereliction  "  which 
not  only  attacks  the  wakeful  subject,  but  sometimes  infu- 
ses itself  into  the  dreams  of  sleepers.  Many  women  in  a 
state  of  pregnancy  are  said  to  be  liable  to  this  disease,  so 
to  term  it,  who,  in  any  other  state,  would  be  horrified  at 
the  bare  mention  of  the  crime  of  theft.  They  exhibit 

273 

I 


274    •  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

great  adroitness  in  their  manoeuvres  when  under  the  influ. 
ence  of  the  disease,  and  possess  a  boldness,  too,  of  which, 
in  their  strictly  "  right  minds,"  they  would  be  utterly  in- 
capable. Such  establishments  as  Stewart's  great  retail  dry 
goods  store  expend  large  sums  of  money  yearly  in  the 
employment  of  detectives  to  watch  the  customers,  to  see 
that  they  do  not  slyly  purloin  such  goods  as  they  may 
easily  secrete  in  carpet-bags,  in  their  pockets,  under  shawls, 
or  under  their  dresses,  and  so  on.  Not  a  small  number 
of  these  would-be  thieves  are  kleptomaniacs,  and  mostly 
women  suffering  under  diseases  peculiar  to  the  sex,  or 
women  in  a  state  of  pregnancy,  whose  blood  is  more  or 
less  driven  in  unusual  quantities  into  the  head,  and  stirs 
there  passions  and  desires  which  they  never  so  feel  at 
other  times.  The  philosophy  of  this  thing  would  be  a 
pleasant  matter  of  study,  and  falls  legitimately  enough  into 
the  line  of  a  detective's  life  to  investigate ;  but  here  is 
not  the  place  for  its  discussion  at  any  great  length. 

I  may  run  some  risk  in  the  narration  of  this  tale,  of 
trespassing  upon  the  feelings  of  some  persons  who  might 
prefer  that  I  say  nothing  about  it;  for  the  facts  were 
known  to  a  large  circle  of  highly-respectable  people,  most- 
ly relatives  of  the  "  chief  person  of  the  drama,"  who  would, 
perhaps,  prefer  that  the  matter  should  rest  in  peace,  and 
go  out  in  oblivion  by  and  by.  But  I  will  endeavor  to  be 
delicate  and  courteous  enough,  in  the  avoidance  of  names, 
and  in  my  general  descriptions,  to  offend  no  one  of  those 
relatives  who  may  read  this. 

There  are  a  great  many  people  who  have  a  natural  ten- 
dency to  superstitions  of  all  kinds.  They  have  excel- 
lent common  sense,  for  example,  in  everything  except  in 
matters  of  a  religious  nature.  A  family  of  such  people 
may  be  divided  into  religious  partisans  of  the  bitti 
stamp ;  the  one  may  be  a  Baptist,  for  instance,  and  believe 
that  all  the  rest,  who  disagree  with  him,  must  be  lost. 
Another  member  may  be  a  modern  "  Adventist,"  deny 
the  doctrine  of  the  essential  immortality  of  the  soul,  ancl 


OLD  KNICKERBOCKERS.  275 

think  his  brother,  who  does  believe  in  it,  guilty  of  a 
proud  aiid  siuful  assumption  and  godless  vanity  in  so 
doing.  Another  may  become  an  English  churchman,  and 
gravitate  from  that  character  into  the  Roman  Catholic 
church,  and  feel  that  all  the  rest, — the  Baptist,  the  Advent- 
ist,  etc., —  must  "  perish  eternally/'  unless  they  come  into 
the  fold  of  the  Roman  see.  And  still  another  may  be  a 
modern  Spiritualist,  and  believe  in  the  return  of  "  de- 
parted souls  "  to  earth,  to  commune  directly,  or  through 
"  mediums,"  with  poor  mortals  here,  etc.  It  seems  to 
depend  very  much  upon  how  the  superstitious  element  in 
each  member  of  such  families  is  first  or  finally  addressed, 
as  to  what  each  may  become. 

The  reader  will  please"  conceive  of  an  old,  respectable 
family  of  Knickerbockers,  into  whose  veins  was  infused  a 
little  Yankee  blood,  imported  from  near  Boston,  Mass.,  a 
family  whose  sires  held  in  the  past  high  rank  and  official 
position  in  the  state  and  nation  —  a  family  not  a  little 
proud  of  its  far-off  Dutch  and  English  stock  — reared  in 
wealth  and  luxury,  well  bred,  of  course,  at  home,  and  well 
educated,  both  the  males  and  the  females ;  with  a  large 
amount  of  landed  estate  in  various  parts  of  the  country, 
and  blessed  with  a  plenty  of  houses  and  building  lots  in 
the  cities  of  New  York  and  Brooklyn ;  and,  in  fact,  I  have 
been  told  that  their  property  could  be  pointed  out  all 
along  the  road,  from  Jersey  City  to  Morristown,  New 
Jersey.  In  fact  it  was  by  the  possession  of  city  lots, 
and  the  constant  increase  of  value  thereof,  that  the  fam- 
ily acquired  the  larger  portion  of  their  estate.  Add  to 
this  that  the  relatives  of  the  family  are  mostly  ri-eh,  and 
that  such  of  them  as  are  not  rich,  belong  to  that  highly  re- 
spectable, humdrum  sort  of  people,  who  are  here  and 
there  found  in  the  midst  of  the  stir  and  bustle  of  New 
York,  who  persist  in  representing  old  notions,  old  modes 
of  doing  business,  and  whose  chief  pride  exercises  and 
delights  itself  in  talking  over  what  their  fathers  did,  who 
their  grandfathers  were,  etc.,  or  in  preserving,  perhaps,% 


276  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

some  legend,  that  when  Washington  had  his  residence 
near  Bowling  Green,  their  grand-uncle,  or  some  other  rel- 
ative, was  a  welcome  visitor  there.  It  is  necessary  to 
bring  to  the  mind's  eye  this  class  of  people  in  order  to 
comprehend  the  commotion  which  bestirred  them  at  the 
time  Avhen  I  was  called  to  "  work  up  a  case  "  in  their 
midst. 

One  day,  in  the  last  "  decade,"  I  was  waited  on  by  a  very 
proper  old  gentlemen,  neatly  dressed,  with  long  white  locks 
smoothly  combed,  hanging  over  his  shoulders.  The  old 
gentleman  possessed  one  of  those  passionless  faces,  so  dif- 
ficult to  read,  unless  you  can  get  a  chance  to  peer  down 
the  eyes.  He  wore  his  gloves  just  one  size  too  large ;  a 
little  too  independent  to  conform  to  the  fashion,  of  tight 
gloves,  and  a  little  too  aristocratic  to  go  without  any,  —  (al- 
though I  think  a  poor-fitting  glove  no  ornament,  to  say  the 
least), — and  walked  with  the  short,  dainty,  quick  step  of  the 
men  of  note  of  the  last  century ;  he  was  tall,  that  is,  about 
five  feet  and  ten  inches  in  height,  rather  slim,  though  he 
evidently  had  been  a  man  of  quite  robust  form. 

But  some  name  I  must  have — and  what  better  can  I 
substitute  for  the  real  one  than  Garretson  ?  I  might  have 
chosen  Paulding,  or  Van  Wyck ;  but  I  may  wish  to  use 
them  yet  in  this.  Well,  such  a  looking  man  was  Mr.  Gar- 
retson, as  he  came  o^e>  day  into  my  office,  bearing  me  a 
note  of  introduction  from  an  old  skipper  who  had  his  office 
in  Pearl  Street  then,  near  Wall  Street.  The  note,  it  ap- 
peared, was  written  at  Mr.  Garretson's,  on  peculiar  fam- 
ily note  paper,  and  bore  the  Garretson  coat  of  arms,  and 
would,  I  presume,  have  been  sealed  with  the  Garretson 
li  stamp,"  and  a  pile  of  sealing-wax  as  large  as  one  of  the 
lead  drops  on  "  bulls,"  which  the  Pope  attaches  to  deeds 
of  excommunication,  or  of  convocation  of  councils,  if 
it  had  not  been  a  note  of  introduction,  and  therefore 
not  proper  to  be  sealed ;  for  the  Garretsons  were  never 
known  to  do  anything  which  was  not  proper,  not  suitable 
to  their  rank,  and  so  forth,  to  do.  The  old  gentleman 


A   DOUBTING   OLD   MAN.  279 

stared  a  little  as  he  entered  my  office,  evidently  expecting 
to  find  its  appointments  a  little  more  to  his  taste,  instead 
of  finding  "  everything  "  in  the  office,  and  nothing  in  or- 
der; and  asking  if  such  were  my  name,  and  being  an- 
swered in  the  affirmative,  he  daintily  handed  me  the 
note. 

"  Be  seated,  sir,"  said  I,  as  I  took  it ;  and  pointed  him  to 
a  seat  near  the  window,  which  looked  out  on  the  public 
street,  and  the  only  empty  seat  in  my  office  save  mine, 
the  rest  being  filled  with  books,  papers,  coats,  hats,  shack- 
ling irons,  some  old  disguises,  masks,  etc.,  which  I  had 
that  day  pulled  out  of  a  trunk  to  give  them  an  airing,  and 
had  scattered  about.  As  I  read  the  note,  I  looked  at  the 
old  gentleman,  and  found  him  looking  out  of  the  window, 
as  if  he  were  uneasy,  and  was  questioning  in  his  mind 
what  manner  of  man  was  he  whom  he  had  come  to  vLsit 
and  consult,  —  for  so  intimated  the  letter  of  my  old  friend, 
the  skipper. 

I  finished  the  perusal  of  the  note  in  a  minute  or  so,  and 
stepping  up  to  the  old  man,  offered  him  my  hand,  with  the 
usual  salutations,  and  drawing  my  chair  near  him,  sat  clown. 

"  Well,  Mr.  Garretson,  our  friend  has  intimated  your 
business  with  me.  I  am  at  your  service." 

There  was  quite  a  long  pause,  when  the  old  man  brought 
his  cane  down  on  the  floor  between  his  legs,  rested  his 
hands  upon  the  head  of  it,  bent  over  it  a  little,  and  be- 
gan :  — 

"  Really,  Mr. .  I  was  thinking  why,  on  the  whole,  I 

had  come  here ;  for  the  more  I  think,  the  less  do  I  believe 
that  you  can  give  us  any  assistance.  We've  tried  every- 
thing ourselves." 

"  Yes,  sir,  perhaps  I  cannot  assist  you ;  but  if  you  will 
tell  me  your  story,  I  shall  probably  be  able  to  tell  you 
whether  I  can  or  not  immediately." 

"  That's  the  trouble,  sir ;  the  question  of  probabilities 
in  the  matter,"  said  he  :  "  for  my  story  is  a  peculiar  one, 
and  involves  the  disclosure  of  matters  which  I  should  not 

11* 


280  KNOTS   U3TIED. 

like  to  tell  you,  unless  you  can  conscientiously  say  that 
you  think  you  can  solve  one  of  the  greatest  mysteries  in 
the  world,"-— and  here  he  paused. 

"  Why,  sir,"  said  I,  "  everything  is  a  mystery  to  those 
who  do  not  understand  it.  I  cannot  assure  you  that  I  can 
be  of  any  service  to  you ;  but  it  is  my  business  to  unravel 
these  matters  which  are  mysteries  to  most  people,  and 
however  complicated  your  case  may  be,  I  dare  say  I  can 
cite  many  instances  of  as  difficult  ones,  which  have  been 
worked  out." 

"  I  presume  so,"  said  he.  "  You  are  right.  '  What  man 
has  done  man  may  do/  you  know ;  but  we've  tried  every- 
thing which  seems  possible  to  -be  done,  to  solve  the 
trouble." 

"  Doubtless  all  you  have  thought  of  as  being  practicable 
has  been  tried,  sir;  but  there  is  some  solution  of  your 
trouble  possible,  sir,  of  course." 

"  Yes,  yes;  that's  true  —  unless  there  is  some  superior 
power  at  work  in  the  matter.  Some  of  my  family  and 
friends  think  there  is." 

"  0,  ho  !  Then  to  find  out  that  for  a  certainty  would  be  a 
solution  worth  having ;  but  you  can  only  discover  that  by 
first  proving  that  your  affair  is  not  operated  by  any  ordi- 
nary power.  Do  you  mean  that  it's  thought  to  be  the 
work  of  disembodied  spirits  ?  " 

"  Yes,  and  I  confess  I  am  half-inclined  to  think  so  myself; 
and  I  almost  feel  sorry  that  I  have  come  to  you  so  soon," 
said  he,  in  a  voice  and  manner  which  revealed  to  me  his 
superstitious  proclivities  quite  pointedly. 

"  0,  well,  sir,"  I  replied,  "  it  is  not  proper  for  me  to  press 
you  to  tell  your  story  now.  You  must  be  your  own  judge 
of  the  propriety  of  doing  so;  but  if  you  wish  to,  you  <•  m 
recite  your  case  to  me  confidentially,  and  I  will  give  you 
whatever  construction  of  it  may  occur  to  me." 
.  "  Well,  if  the  matter  can  remain  a  secret  with  you,  if  you 
do  not  see  a  way  to  solve  it,  I  will  tell  you,  and  I  do  pre- 
sume that  you  may  bo  able-  to  cast  some  light  upon  it.  The 


NO   ONE   SUSPECTED. 

case  is  this.  I  live  at  No.  89 Street,  as  you  already 

know  from  Mr. '&  note." 

"  Yes,  sir;  I  call  the  house  to  mind ;  have  often  noticed 
it  as  I  have  passed  along  that  street." 

"  Well,  sir,  now  for  some  eight  months  I've  been  able  to 
keep  nothing  in  our  house  of  a  small  kind,  and  valuable 
nature,  such  as  spoons,  napkin  rings,  all  sorts  of  silver 
ware,  jewelry,  watches,  ladies'  dresses,  and  my  own  cloth- 
ing, etc.,  in  fact,  anything ;  it  is  all  mysteriously  carried 
off.  I  say  mysteriously,  for  we  have  kept  watch,  night 
after  night,  and  things  would  disappear  right  before  our 
eyes,  as  it  were." 

"  Well,"  said  I,  after  a  pause  of  some  length,  in  which 
the  old  man  seemed  to  be  pondering  whether  he  would  go 
on  with  his  story  or  not,  looking  bewildered,  as  if  there 
was  something  he  wished  to  tell  me  about,  but  did  not 
quite  dare  to,  or  was  ashamed  to  tell.  "  Well,  tell  mo 
the  whole  stpry.  How  many  persons  are  there  in  your 
family?" 

"  My  wife  and  myself,  three  unmarried  daughters ;  two 
married  ones  spend  much  time  there  too ;  and  two  of  my 
sons,  unmarried.  They  are  in  business  ;  but  I  like  to  have 
my  family  about  me  —  " 

"  Are  these  all  ?  " 

"  Yes,  except  the  servants.  I  have  four  maid-servants 
in  the  house,  besides  my  coachman  and  butler." 

"  Do  you  suspect  none  of  these  servants  ?  " 

"  No ;  I've  tested  them  in  every  way.  They  have  all, 
with  the  exception  of  one  girl,  been  with  me  for  from  ten 
to  twenty-five  years.  I  called  the  women  maid-servants ; 
two  of  them  are  widows,  one  has  been  a  widow  for  twenty 
years,  and  has  lived  with  us  for  all  that  time,  and  the  but- 
ler has  been  with  us  longer.  •  I  would  trust  any  of  them 
as  soon  as  I  would  my  own  children." 

"  Of  course,  then,  you  suspect  no  one  in  your  house  ?  " 

'•'  No,  no  ;  there's  nobody  there  to  do  these  things.  We've 
all  watched  and  watched,  J  tell  you,  and  the  servants  are 


282  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

as  much  interested  as  we  to  know  who  is  the  guilty 
actor,  for  they  have  lost  many  things  as  well  as  the  rest 
of  us." 

"  You  speak  of  one  girl  who  has  not  been  there  so  tong 
as  the  rest.     How  long  has  she  been  with  you  ?  " 
••  About  three  years.'' 
"  Has  she  a  lover  who  visits  the  house  ?  " 
"  0,  yes ;  and  he's  been  coming  there  for  two  years." 
"  Why  don't  he  marry  her  and  take  her  away  ?  " 
"  My  wife  wouldn't  part  with  her  —  will  keep  her  as  long 
as  she  lives,  if  she  can.     She  thinks  she's  the  best  servant 
she  ever  saw.     We  should  suspect  her  least  of  all.     She 
has  lost  nearly  every  keepsake  her  lover  has  given  her, 
and  some  very  valuable  things  which  her  mother  gave  her 
on  leaving  Ireland,  and  the  poor  girl  has  nearly  cried  her 
eyes  out  over  her  loss." 

"  Well,  her  lover,  what  sort  of  a  man  is  he?  " 
"  A   hard   working   mechanic ;   works   at   the    Novelty 
Works,  and  bears  an  excellent  name." 
"Is  he  Irish,  too?     I  suppose  he  is." 
"  Xu  ;  he  is  an  Englishman  — a  Yorkshire  man,  I  think." 
'•  Is  he  Protestant  or  Catholic?  " 
"  Protestant  to  be  sure.     She's  Catholic,  though." 
"  Have  you  ever  talked  with  him  about  your  losses?  " 
"  Yes;  and  he  and  Mary,  the  girl,  have  watched  several 
times,  sitting  up  to  keep  my  wife  company,  who  was  watch- 
ing too ;  sitting  up  half  the  night,  and  things  would  dis- 
appear then." 

"  So  you  have  no  reason  for  suspecting  him.  Well,  the 
case  does  look  a  little  strange,  1  confess,"  said  I ;  "  but  I 
would  like  to  have  you  go  into  detail  all  about  your  promi- 
ses ;  where  the  things  taken  were,  who  were  in  your  house 
at  the  time,  the  kind  of  looks  you  have  on  your  doors; 
what  searches  you  have  made,  at  what  hours,  or  between 
what  hours,  the  things  have  been  taken;  for  how  lon^,  in 
consecutive'  days  or  weeks,  things  have  been  stolen  ;  if 
th'-re's  been  any  cessation  of  these  pilferings  for  any  length 


A  LITTLE  ENCOURAGEMENT.  283 

of  time  since  they  began*  if  you  have  ever  discovered  any 
traces  of  anybody's  having  gotten  into  the  house  at  this 
or  that  window  ;  what  part  of  the  house  has  been  rifled 
the  most,"  —  and  every  other  query  I  could  then  think 
of,  I  added. 

This  drew  from  the  old  gentleman  a  minute  story  of  the 
whole  affair.  I  found  the  locks  were  the  best ;  that  he  had 
a  ferocious  watch-dog  loose  every  night  in  the  lower  and 
middle  part  of  the  house,  but  excluded  from  the  chambers, 
on  the  servants'  account,  who  were  afraid  of  him ;  that  all 
parts  of  the  house  were  rifled  alike,  and  it  seemed  from 
what  he  said  that  the  thefts  were  accomplished  from  about 
the  time  of  the  family's  retiring  until  morning,  for  they 
had  watched  sometimes  till  near  morning,  and  then  on  ris- 
ing would  find  something  gone,  mostly  things  of  value, 
too ;  but  sometimes  trivial  things,  such  as  the  grand-chil- 
dren's tops,  etc.,  when  they  happened  to  be  visiting  there. 
The  relatives  of  the  family  had  been  called  in  tor  watch 
too;  but  things  went  when  they  were  there  the  same,  and 
when  the  watch  was  most  complete  as  to  the  number  of 
watchers,  then  it  was  that  the  most  valuable  things  were 
missed,  and  injury  (evidently  out  of  pure  malevolence) 
done  to  valuable  furniture ;  and  finally  Mr.  Garretson 
told  me  that  there  had  been  two  obvious  attempts  to 
fire  the  house,  —  and  this  he  uttered  with  tremulous 
emotions. 

From  all  I  could  gather  from  him  I  could  not  make  up 
my  mind  to  any  conclusions  upon  which  it  could  rest,  and 
I  told  him  I  must  visit  the  premises,  and  make  examina- 
tions for  myself.  But  I  could  not  go  till  the  next  day  or 
night,  for  that  night  I  had  engaged  to  meet  some  parties 
in  counsel  upon  an  important  matter ;  "  but  which,"  said  I, 
to  him,  "  was  more  mysterious,  a  week  ago,  than  anything 
you  have  told  me,  and  which  has  been  worked  out.  Now 
we  are  to  consult  as  to  how  best  to  get  the  guilty  parties 
into  our  hands,  for  we  know  who  they  are."  This  seemed 
to  encourage  Mr.  Garretsou  for  a  little,  and  we  parted, 


284  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

I  to  call  at  his  house  some  time  next  day,  at  my  conven- 
ience. 

I  went  as  appointed,  and  was  presented  by  Mr.  Garret- 
son  to  his  wife,  a  fair-looking  old  lady,  of  the  blonde  school. 
Indeed,  she  was  a  motherly,  sweet  woman  to  look  upon, 
and  had  evidently  drunken  at  the  "fountain  of  youth" 
somewhere ;  for  although  she  was  only  five  years  younger 
than  Mr.  Garretson,  as  I  learned,  she  looked  thirty  years 
•  his  junior.  Her  face  was  a  blending  of  the  Greek  and 
modern  German  in  style,  nose  aquiline,  and  head  broad, 
and  not  lacking  in  height;  a  pleasingly-shaped  head  to 
look  upon ;  and  there  was  all  the  mercy,  tenderness,  and 
kindness  in  her  eye  and  voice  which  one  could  desire  to 
find  in  a  woman. 

There  was  a  sweet,  unostentatious  dignity,  too,  about 
her  which  compelled  respect.  She  gave  me  a  long  account 
of  the  household's  troubles,  of  her  own  watchings  night 
after  night,  of  the  hypotheses  she  had  had  about  the  mat- 
ter, and  how  one  by  one  they  had  been  exploded ;  and  she 
and  Mr.  Garretson  took  me  all  over  the  house,  even  up 
into  the  attic,  among  piles  of  old  "  lumber,"  such  as  boxes, 
old  trunks,  old  furniture,  that  had  been  set  aside  to  make 
room  for  new,  piled  up  with  hosts  of  things  which  almost 
any  other  family  would  have  sent  off  to  the  auction  shops, 
or  sold  to  second-hand  furniture  men.  But  she  explained 
that  some  of  these  things  had  belonged  to  her  grand- 
father, and  other  deceased  relatives,  and  that  a  large  old 
Dutch  wooden  chest,  with  great  iron  clasps  all  over  it, 
was  brought  over  by  Mr.  Garretson's  ancestors  from 
Europe.  These  she  couldn't  bear  to  sell,  she  said ;  •'  and 
often."  said  she,  "  they  afford  me  great  pleasure,  for  when 
Mr.  Garretson  and  the  girls  are  gone  from  home,  I  sit  up 
here  in  this  old  chair  "  (and  she  pointed  to  a  large  chair,  the 
posts  of  which  were  large  enough  each  to  make  a  modern 
chair  out  of),  "  and  muse,  read,  and  think  over  the  past,  and 
dwell  upon  heavenly  tilings  to  come." 

In  her  talk,  Mrs.  Garretson  became  quite  animated,  and 


DEPARTED   "SPIRITS."  285 

•we  waited  up  there,  listening  to  her  stories  about  the  old 
furniture  and  her  ancestors,  quite  a  long  while.  I  noticed 
that  with  the  excitement  of  the  hour  her  face  had  become 
quite  rosy,  and  that  there  was  a  peculiar  spot  on  each 
cheek,  not  unlike  the  hectic  flush  upon  the  cheeks  of  the 
consumptive.  But  she  was,  apparently,  in  the  full  vigor 
•of  health;  a  tall,  but  solidly-made  woman,  and  evidently 
had  no  trouble  in  her  lungs.  But  the  spots  gave  her  face 
a  peculiar  expression,  and  withal  seemed,  somehow,  to 
give  her  eyes  the  look  of  subtle  intelligence,  which  I  had 
not  observed  before.  I  found  that  although  Mr.  Garretson 
was  a  sensible  old  man,  well  educated,  and,  withal,  courtly, 
yet  Mrs.  Gr.  was  the  chief  spirit  of  the  house,  and  so  I 
consulted  her  further  when  we  came  from  the  attic.  We 
visited  each  chamber,  and  looked  into  each  closet,  of 
course ;  and  the  windows  of  the  house  in  front  and  rear 
were  all  examined,  and  I  satisfied  myself  too  that  there  was 
no  easy  approach,  and  no  way  of  getting  in  without  great 
risk  to  life  or  limb  from  the  other  adjoining  houses  ;  and  I 
examined  the  basement  as  thoroughly,  talked  with  the  ser- 
vants,and  finally  with  the  daughters,two  of  whom  were  then 
at  home,  and  who  came  in  from  making  morning  calls.  One 
of  these  daughters  had  settled  down  upon  the  conviction 
that  the  thefts  were  the  work  of  disembodied  spirits  ;  but 
to  my  query  if  she  meant  by  these  words  "  departed 
friends"  she  smiled,  and  said,  "  Not  exactly ;  "  and  went  on 
to  tell  me  her  religious  notions  about "  evil  spirits,"  as  well 
as  good  ones,  etc.  The  father  fell  in  with  her  views  con- 
siderably ;  but  the  clear-headed  old  lady,  the  mother,  in  a 
kind  way,  combated  them  with  great  force.  But  there 
was  no  answering  the  daughter  when  she  retorted, — 

"Well,  perhaps  it  is  not  the  work  of  spirits;  but  will 
you  tell  me  whose  work  it  is  —  who  does  it?  " 

Of  course  the  family  could  have  nothing  to  reply.  They 
had  exhausted  their  powers  to  solve  the  mystery,  and  *I 
confess  I  began  to  think  a  particle  less  lightly  of  ghost?, 
hobgoblins,  and  "  spirits  of  departed  men,"  than  ever  be- 


28G  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

fore.  That  dog,  too,  which  was  chained  up  below,  and 
was  let  loose  of  nights,  was  a  savage-looking  follow,  and  it 
seemed  to  me  that  he  would  catch  and  tear  to  pieces  any- 
thing but  a  spirit  that  might  be  prowling  about  the  house. 

I  was  at  my  wits'  ends  to  conceive  a  theory  which 
should  throw  light  upon  the  subject,  or  even  to  make  any- 
thing at  all  like  a  reasonable  conjecture.  But  I  could  not 
help  feeling  that  perhaps  out  of  the  daughter's  suggestion 
of  "  spiritual  "  interference  might  be  wrought  something 
in  the  way  of  a  solution  of  the  vexatious  mystery;  and 
so  I  brought  up  the  topic  in  that  phase  again,  and  we  all 
entered  into  a  general  discussion. 

It  appeared  that  things  had  more  frequently  been  missed 
when  all  the  outer  doors  and  all  the  windows  of  the  house 
had  been  closed  and  locked,  than  at  other  times,  when  some 
of  the  upper  windows  especially  had  been  opened  ;  more  in 
the  winter  than  in  the  summer  time.  The  articles  taken, 
then,  could  hardly  have  been  borne  by  "  spirits  "  even, 
through  the  solid  doors,  or  the  glass  of  the  windows  ;  and 
so  I  inquired  if  it  was  sure  that  every  trunk  and  every 
hiding-place  in  the  house  had  been  searched,  and  was  as- 
sured by  all,  father,  mother,  and  daughters  that  such 
search  had  been  frequently  made  by  them ;  and  they  ex- 
plained how  they  had  gone  to  the  bottom  of  trunks  and 
boxes,  and  had  "  shaken  out  sheets/'  etc.,  for  in  the  early 
period  of  these  thefts,  it  had  been  conjectured  that  the 
things  missed  had.  simply  been  mislaid.  The  daughter 
gave  me-her  reasons  extendedly  for  supposing  the  thefts 
the  work  of  spirits,  and  I  had  to  confess  that  some  of  her 
reasoning  seemed  good,  "  provided  always,"  as  a  lawyer- 
would  say,  that  there  are  any  such  existences  as  "  spirits  " 
at  all.  But  the  family  believed  in  "  spirits  ;  "  whether  they 
could  or  did  communicate  with  "  things  on  earth,"  or  not, 
was  the  whole  question  with  them  ;  but  the  mother's  judg- 
ment seemed  to  settle  the  question  for  the  father  and  the 
other  daughter,  which  was,  that  these  thefts  were  not  com- 
mitted by  spirits ;  and  to  this  point  we  got  during  my 


MYSTERIOUS.  287 


tarry  there  that  day,  and  it  was  agreed  tfiat  I  should  re- 
turn in  the  evening  and  pass  the  night  in  the  house. 

I  left  Mr.  Garretson's,  and  being  a  little  weary,  when  I 
returned  home  threw  myself  on  my  bed,  and  managed  to 
secure  about  four  hours'  sleep,  which  I  needed  in  view  of 
my  prospective  watching  that  night,  and  I  arrived  at  Mr. 
G.'s  about  half  past  ten  o'clock.*  A  room  had  been  pre- 
pared for  me  on  the  first  flight,  above  the  parlor,  its  door 
opening  into  the  broad  hall,  which  room  I  took  after  a  half 
hour's  conversation  with  the  family.  It  appeared  that 
things  were  missed  equally  on  nights  when  the  gas  was 
burning  dimly  about  the  house,  as  when  it  was  shut  off  ^ 
and  I  deemed  it  best  to  have  a  slight  light  burning  in  the 
halls,  parlors,  and  so  forth,  which  was«permitted.  Bidding 
the  family  good  night  (having  concluded  to  not  let  the 
dog  loose  for  fear,  in  my  secret  mind,  that  he  might  attack 
me  if  loose,  and  I  should  be  about  the  house  ;  but  which 
thought  I  did  not  then  reveal,  saying  only  that  he  might 
make  a  noise,  and  I  could  perhaps  listen  better  if  I  heard 
steps).  I  betook  myself  to  my  room,  and  drawing  a 
lounge  near  to  the  door,  which  was  open  a  few  inches, 
I  stretched  myself  upon  it,  and  began  to  muse  upon  the 
probabilities  in  the  case.  There  I  lay.  The  clock  struck 
twelve  —  again  it  struck  one  —  and  1  had  no  occasion  to 
move  from  my  position,  and  began  to  conceive  that  possi- 
bly the  "  spirits  "  wouldn't  work  with  me  in  the  house.  A 
half  hour  more  went  on,  when  suddenly  I  discovered  the 
light  in  the  hall  go  out.  Quickly  leaving  the  lounge,  I 
rushed  into  the  hall,  only  to  discover  that  it  was  total  dark- 
.  ness  all  over  the  house,  save  in  my  room.  When  Mrs. 
Garretson,  hearing  me,  stepped  to  her  door,  and  said,  — 

"  Is  that  you,  Mr.  -    -  ?  " 

"  Yes,  madam.     I  saw  the  light  go  out,  and  I  came  to 
see  what  it  means." 

"  0,"  said  she,  "  I  put  out  the   light,  for  somehow,  I 
found  it  oppressive  —  the  sense  of  it  —  and  could  not  sleep,. 
and  I  guess  we  shall  not  be  disturbed  to-night." 
17 


288  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

A  few  more,  words  were  exchanged  between  us,  when  I 
retired  to  my  room,  and  there  watched  the  whole  night  out, 
waiting  for  some  sign  of  noise  in  the  house.  But  I  re- 
flected that  Mrs.  G.  had  been  in  different  parts  of  the 
house  to  put  out  the  lights,  and  I  had  not  heard  her  move. 
Had  she  not  put  out  the  lights  I  should  not  have  known 
that  she  had  stirred.  How,  then,  could  I  hear  spirits,  or 
even  mortals,  so  far  as  their  footfalls  were  concerned  ?  Mr. 
G.  got  up  early  that  morning,  came  to  my  room,  and  begged 
me  to  go  to  bed  and  sleep,  as  he  should  be  up  and  aboul 
the  rest  of  the  morning,  as  well  as  the  servants,  who  would 
Boon  be  up.  They  would  have  a  late  breakfast,  or  I  could 
lie  till  dinner  time,  if  I  liked,  and  get  a  good  rest.  He 
closed  the  door  as  he  went  out,  and  I  lay  till  called  for 
dinner.  At  breakfast-time  Mr.  G.  had  made  his  way  to 
my  room,  and  finding  me  "  snoring  soundly,"  as  he  said, 
let  me  sleep  on. 

At  dinner,  it  was  disclosed  that  some  three  or  four  things 
had  been  missed  that  night ;  among  them  a  very  valuable 
gold  thimble,  which  the  daughters  knew  was  left  in  a  given 
place,  and  they  were  the  last  who  retired  ;  and  a  peculiar, 
elegant,  silver-mounted  sea-shell,  which  had  been  brought 
from  the  Mediterranean,  and  on  which  had  been  cut  some 
sea-songs  in  the  modern  Greek  language.  I  had  noticed 
this  beautiful  shell  myself.  Where  were  these  gone,  and 
who  had  taken  them  ?  Mrs.  Garretson  was  sure  that  she 
was  awake  a  good  part  of  the  night,  and  could  have  heard 
anybody  moving  about  the  house,  for  with  a  screen  at 
their  door,  her  husband  and  herself  usually  left  their  bed- 
room door  open.  We  canvassed  the  matter  over  and  over, 
and  arrived  at  no  conclusion.  Finally,  it  was  determined 
that  I  should  stay  the  coming  night.  And  I  left,  and  re- 
turned in  due  time.  This  night  was  one  of  severe  watch- 
ing, to  no  purpose.  Nothing  was  found  to  be  gone,  and  I 
watched  still  the  third  night,  to  no  purpose.  No  noise 
was  there,  and  nothing  taken ;  and  I  gave  up  the  matter 


•   PREPARING   TO   RETIRE.  201 

for  a  while,  subject  to  be  called  in  again  if  Mr.  Garretson 
thought  best. 

Several  days,  and  finally  three  weeks  passed,  before  I 
was  again  called.  Meanwhile  this  case  was  constantly  on 
my  mind,  no  matter  how  busily  I  was  employed  with  other 
matters,  some  of  which  were  almost  as  difficult  of  solution 
as  this.  I  could  not  yet  come  to  any  conclusion ;  but  I 
had  resolved,  that  if  I  should  be  called  in  again,  what  course 
to  pursue.  At  the  end  of  three  weeks  Mr.  G.  called  on 
me,  and  said  that  the  "  spirits  "  were  again  at  work ;  had 
visited  the  house  the  night  before,  and  carried  off  several 
things,  this  time  having  evidently  tried  to  carry  away  some 
chairs,  for  they  found  two  of  the  parlor  chairs  in  the  base- 
ment hall,  standing  against  the  door.  This  was  rather  too 
much  for  my  credulity,  that  "  spirits  "  should  do  these 
things,  and  I  went  that  night  to  Mr.  G.'s  with  the  deter- 
mined purpose  of  meeting  the  "  spirits  "  in  the  operation 
of  carrying  off  chairs,  etc.,  for  I  concluded  I  could  see  the 
furniture  if  the  spirits  were  indeed  invisible.  The  room  I 
had  before  was  given  me,  and  the  household  retired,  —  I 
giving  them  no  clew  to  the  course  I  intended  to  pursue. 
The  dog  was  chained  as  before,  and  I  had  taken  quiet 
notice  of  the  location  of  everything  in  the  parlors,  and 
had  visited  the  kitchen  (from  which  things  were  frequent- 
ly taken,  even  loaves  of  bread,  for  which  I  suspected  the 
"  spirits  "  had  no  use),  and  taken  notes  there.  I  had  visited 
the  dog  in  company  with  Mrs.  G.,  and  gotten  into  his 
good  graces  as  well  as  I  could,  and  made  him  familiar  with 
my  voice. 

The  family  retired,  and  so  did  I,  but  not  to  sleep.  In  a 
half  hour  after  going  to  my  reom,  there  being  no  light  in 
the  house  this  night,  I  took  a  dark  lantern  I  had  secretly 
brought  with  me,  and  taking  off  my  boots,  tripped  down 
into  the  parlors,  out  of  one  of  which,  in  the  somewhat  old- 
fashioned  house, opened  a  closet  with  shelves  in  it,at  the  top, 
but  with  room  enough  for  me  to  sit  comfortably  in  it  upon 
an  ottoman,  which  I  placed  there,  and  with  the  door  slight- 


292  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

}y  ajar,  there  I  sat.  Of  course  I  was  well  armed  for  any 
emergency,  and  my  purpose  was  to  shoot  anything  like  a 
"  spirit"  I  might  find  prowling  about,  provided  1  could  get 
"  sight  "  of  the  wretch.  There  I  remained  for  two  hours 
and  over,  when,  about  half  after  one  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing I  heard  something  like  a  person's  stumbling  against 
a  chair.  I  listened  intently,  and  heard  something  moving 
very  stealthily.  There  was  no  light  in  the  room,  and  so 
cocking  my  trusty  pistol,  and  holding  it  in  my  right  hand, 
I  with  the  other  brought  out  from  its  concealment  my 
dark  lantern,  and  threw  its  full  blaze  into  the  room,  and 
there,  to  my  astonishment,  I  found  a  person  in  a  night- 
gown, with  a  sort  of  tunic  over  it.  The  size  indicated 
Mrs.  G.,  and  I  was  just  about  to  apologize  to  her,  when 
she  turned  about,  and  I  saw  that  her  eyes  were  closed. 
There  was  a  very  peculiar  and  cunning  look  in  her  face,  and 
she  concealed  in  her  tunic  a  pair  of  opera  glasses,  and  other 
small  things,  which  she  took  from  the  ctacjeres  in  the  cor- 
ner of  the  room.  It  flashed  upon  iny  mind  at  once,  of 
course,  that  Mrs.  G.  was  the  troublesome  "  spirit "  I  was 
seeking,  and  I  immediately  turned  the  veil  upon  my  lump, 
ft.-aring  {hat  the  light  might  disturb  her  operations,  and 
awaken  her ;  for  I  suspected  at  once  that  she  was  in  a  state 
of  partial  sleep,  and  was,  in  short,  a  somnambulist ;  and  when 
in  the  condition  of  one,  affected  with  the  desire  to  conceal 

I 

things  ;  romancing,  in  short,  in  her  dreams.  I  resolved  to 
follow  her,  to  see  what  disposition  she  would  make  of  her 
prizes ;  and  so,  when  I  concluded  she  had  gotten  to  the 
other  side  of  the  room,  I  brought  out  my  lantern  again, 
and  discovered  her  tripping  lightly  to  the  hall  stairs,  and 
I  slowly  and  softly  followed.  Up  stairs  she  went,  and  up 
another  flight,  and  finally  ascended  the  attic  stairs.  I  fi>l- 
luwc-d,  as  near  as  I  could,  without  disturbing  her,  and  with 
my  light  got  the  opportunity  of  seeing  her  open  the  big 
Dutch  chest,  of  which  I  have  spoken  before.  She  un- 
Rjcked  it,  and  I  waited  no  longer,  but  went  down  to  my 
room,  and  stood  within  the  door  of  it  waiting  for  her  to 


ASTONISHMENT  AROUND  THE  BOARD.      293 

return.  She  came  down  after  some  ten  minutes  had  passed, 
as  stealthily  and  softly  as  she  had  gone  up,  and  there  was 
playing  upon  her  face,  which  my  light  partly  turned  on 
revealed,  that  same  covert  smile.  She  passed  on  to  her 
bed-room  door  which  was  open,  and  must  have  glided 
around  the  screen,  which  stood  within  the  doorway,  and 
lay  down. 

I  withdrew  to  my  room,  locked  the  door,  and  went  to 
bed,  and  slept  more  soundly  than  I  had  done  for  three 
nights  before,  —  the  solace  which  comes  to  mental  anxiety 
is  so  much  more  soothing  than  the  balm  which  heals  only 
physical  pains.  Breakfast  was  called  at  a  late  hour  next 
morning,  and  I  felt  perfectly  refreshed  from  my  sleep,  and 
was  in  one  of  my  jolliest  moods  ;  and  when  I  announced  at 
table  that  I  had,  I  thought  (as  I  cautiously  said),  fully 
solved  the  mystery,  —  had  seen  the  "  spirits,"  and  knew  all 
about  the  matter,  —  there  was  no  little  astonishment  ex- 
pressed all  around  the  board.  But  I  got  the  family  in  a 
joking  mood,  and  held  them  in  suspense  —  in  half  doubts. 
Mrs.  G.  was  the  liveliest  of  all,  and  said  they  could  never 
be  grateful  enough  to  me,  never  could  pay  me  enough  for 
what  I  had  done,  if  I  had  really  scented  out  the  culprits. 
They  asked  me  all  sorts  of  questions;  but  I  was  not  ready 
to  explain,  for  I  was  in  doubt  what  was  the  best  course,— 
whether  I  should  tell  the  mother  alone,  or  the  father,  or 
both,  or  all. 

At  last  I  decided  upon  a  course,  which  was,  to  get  the 
daughters  and  mother  away  from  the  house  on  some  er- 
rand ;  to  tell  the  father,  and  with  him  make  search  of  the 
chest,  and  every  other  conceivable  hiding-place  in  the 
house,  which  thing,  —  the  sending  off  of  the  mother  and 
daughters,  —  was  readily  accomplished  after  I  had  slyly 
taken  the  father  to  my  room,  when  the  ladies  were  occu- 
pied with  their  cares  and  pleasures,  and  told  him  that  I 
wished  he  would  ask  no  questions  why,  but  that  I  desired 
be  would  send  out  his  family.  m 

Fortunately  they  wer^  projecting  a  visit  that  day  to 


294  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

some  friends  in  a  distant  part  of  the  city,  and  the  old  gen- 
tleman encouraged  it ;  and  finally  ordered  out  his  carriage, 
and  sent  them  off  with  the  driver,  in  great  glee,  in  their 
expectancy  of  "  the  great  revelation  when  we  get  home," 
as  the  spiritualistic  daughter  expressed  it. 

They  had  not  gotten  well  away  before  I  asked  the  father 
to  hunt  up  whatever  keys  he  could  find  in  the  house ;  and 
he  was  not  long  in  finding  two  or  three  bunches,  and  sev- 
eral other  single  ones  besides,  and,  without  explaining  any- 
thing, I  told  him  to  follow  me,  and  proceeded  at  once  to 
the  attic.  A  half  dozen  1?rials  of  the  keys  resulted  in 
the  chest's  yielding  up  its  deposits.  There  we  found  all 
sorts  of  things  secreted  away  in  old  boxes  placed  within 
the  chest,  and  all  covered  with  a  blanket,  and  over  all  this 
small  piles  of  time-old  newspapers,  brown  and  faded.  The 
chest  was  very  capacious,  and  contained  a  great  deal  of 
the  silver  ware  that  had  been  taken,  valuable  little  arti- 
cles of  virtu ;  a  large  quantity  of  jewelry,  and  all  sorts  of 
small  things  which  are  ordinarily  to  be  found  in  the  houses 
of  wealthy  people.  These  were  all  nicely  laid  away.  Con- 
siderable order  was  observed  in  their  arrangement,  which 
accounted  for  the  hours  of  solitary  comfort  which  Mrs.  G. 
told  me,  on  the  first  visit  to  the  attic,  that  she  spent  there 
among  the  old  mementos  of  the  past.  But  when  we  had 
gotten  everything  out  of  the  chest,  Mr.  G.  called  to  mind 
many  things  which  had  been  missed,  which  were  not  found 
there ;  so  we  made  the  most  scrupulous  search  into  old 
trunks,  and  other  things  in  the  attic,  without  much  avail, 
finding  a  few  things,  however.  At  last,  in  removing  some 
old  boxes  which  stood  atop  of  each  other,  and  against  the 
chief  chimney  running  through  the  attic,  we  came  across 
a  fireplace,  which  Mr.  G.  said  he  had  forgotten  all  about. 
Long  years  before  the  house  had  been  extended  into  the 
rear  yard  (for  it  was  a  corner  house),  by  a  small  "  L,"  in 
which  the  servants  were  provided  with  rooms.  Prior  to 
that  some  of  them  had  occupied  a  room  done  off  in  the 
attic,  the  board  partitions  of  which  had  been  removed.  It 


A   "COUNCIL  OF   WAR."  295 

was  then  this  fireplace  was  in  use.  A  sheet-iron  "fire- 
board  "  closed  it  up,  and  was  held  in  place  by  a  button. 
As  I  took  hold  of  the  button,  and  found  it  moved  easily,  I 
said  to  Mr.  G., "  We  shall  find  treasures  here ;  "  and  we  did. 
It  was  quite  full  of  household  things  ;  and  here  we  found 
some  of  the  largest  pieces  of  silver  ware  that  had  been 
lost.  A  full  tea-service,  etc.,  together  with  a  large  roll  of 
bank  bills,  and  five  bills  of  old  "  Continental  scrip,"  the 
loss  of  which  Mr.  G.  had  mourned  as  much  as  that  of  almost 
all  the  rest,  for  they  were  pieces  which  Alexander  Hamilton 
had  given  to  Mr.  G.'s  father,  upon  a  certain  occasion  nota- 
ble in  the  history  of  the  latter,  and  bore  General  Hamil- 
ton's initials  in  his  own  hand. 

We  continued  our  search,  and  found  other  things,  which 
it  is  needless  to  specify.  Then  Mr.  G.  and  I  held  a  "  coun- 
cil of  war "  as  to  what  was  to  be  next  done.  We  con- 
cluded that  the  servants  must  not  be  allowed  to  know  any- 
thing about  the  matter,  and  we  had  not  concluded  whether 
the  daughters  were  to  be  let  into  the  secret  or  not.  This 
was  after  I  had  told  Mr.  G.  of  my  solution  of  the  matter, 
which  I  had  kept  secret  from  him  until  we  came  to  consider 
what  was  to  be  done  with  the  things.  At  first  we  thought 
we  would  at  once  carry  them  all  to  his  bedroom,  and  place 
them  in  a  large  closet  there.  But  finally  Mr.  G.  thought 
it  would  be  more  satisfying  to  see  his  wife  operate,  him- 
self; and  we  put  back  the  things  as  well  as  we  could,  and 
went  down.  It  was  arranged  that  I  should  come  back 
that  night  to  watch  further,  and  that  Mr.  G.  should  tell 
the  family  that  I  wished  to  make  more  investigations,  and 
that  I  was  not  quite  satisfied  after  all ;  which  he  did.  That 
night  I  returned,  kept  excellent  watch,  and  Mrs.  G.,  as 
fate  would  have  it,  left  her  room,  and  went  prowling 
about  as  before.  At  the  proper  time  I  entered  Mr.  G.'s 
room,  and  awakened  him ;  and,  drawing  on  his  pantaloons, 
and  wrapping  himself  in  a  cloak,  he  followed  ni%  and 
watched  his  wife's  manoeuvres  to  his  satisfaction,  and  re- 
tired, before  she  had  concluded  her  work. 


296  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

The  next  day,  at  breakfast,  the  family  rallied  me  about 
the  things  missed  the  night  before,  Mr.  G.  joining  in  the 
badgering,  jokingly.  I  played  the  part  of  a  defeated  man, 
half  covered  with  shame  ;  and  before  noon  Mr.  G.  had  tho 
family  out  to  ride  again.  We  hastily  gathered  up  all  the 
lost  and  found  treasures,  and  placed  them  in  a  large  closet 
in  Mr.  G.'B  bedroom;  he  having  made  up  his  mind  to  give 
his  wife,  by  herself,  a  great  surprise,  and  then  tell  her 
what  he  had  seen,  and  consult  her  feelings  as  to  whether 
the  children  were  to  ever  know  how  the  things  were  got- 
ten back,  or  not. 

He  was  anxious  to  have  me  wait  till  she  came ;  and  we 
managed,  without  exciting  the  suspicion  of  the  girls,  to 
get  together  in  the  bedroom,  where  Mr.  G.  opened  the 
door  of  the  closet,  first  cautioning  Mrs.  G.  to  make  no  loud 
exclamation,  and  there  revealed  the  lost  treasures. 

"  See  what  the  i  spirits '  have  brought  back  to  us  ?  " 

said  he.  "  Mr. is  the  best '  medium  for  business '  in 

the  city.  "We  must  give  him  a  certificate  ;  "  and  the  old 
man  "  rattled  away  "  with  his  jokes,  while  Mrs.  G.  looked 
on  with  astonishment  and  delight. 

"  You  must  tell  me  all  about  it,"  said  she.  "  How  did  you 
find  these  things  ?  Who  brought  them  ?  Who  is  tho  thief? 
How  did  he  get  in  the  house  ?  Does  he  come  down  chim- 
ney?" and  a  host  of  other  questions. 

"  I'll  tell  you  all  about  it  to-night,"  said  Mr.  G.  "  It  is  a 
long  story;  but  first  the  girls  must  be  called  to  see  the 
lost  treasures  now  restored."  And  the  daughters  were 
called  up.  To  their  queries,  tittered  amidst  the  profound- 
est  astonishment,  as  to  how,  and  when,  etc.,  the  treasures 
were  brought  back,  and  who  was  the  thief,  and  if  it  was 
some  Catholic,  who  had  disgorged  the  stolen  goods 
tli rough  the  confessional,  Mr.  G.  only  answered,  slyly 
winking  at  the  spiritualistic  daughter,  "It  was  through 
the  means  of  a  first-rate 'medium '  that  tho  things  were 
restored.*' 

"  There,  there,"  said  the  daughter,  too  serious  to  under- 


A   QUESTION  FOR  THE  DOCTORS.  297 

stand  her  father's  irony,  "  I  could  have  told  you  so. 
What  do  you  think  now  of  spiritualism,  father?" 

"  0,  I  don't  know,"  said  he  in  reply.  "  There  are  a  great 
many  strange  things  in  the  world,  that's  a  fact."  But  he 
would  not  promise  to  ever  tell  them  how  the  things  got 
back,  and  the  ladies  went  to  assorting  them,  and  comment- 
ing on  each  article.  It  was  a  novel  sight  to  see  the  eager- 
ness with  which  they  grasped  at  this  or  that  article  as  it 
turned  up, —  the  long-lost  treasures  found. 

1  left  the  house  duly  that  day,  and  I  understood  from  Mr. 
G.,  who  called  on  me  three  or  four  days  after,  that  when 
he  told  his  wife  that  night  what  he  had  seen,  and  how  she 
looked,  and  so  forth,  when  moving  about  so  slyly,  that  she 
had  a  "  great  crying  spell "  over  it,  and  did  not  wish  the 
daughters  to  be  informed  of  the  secret  state  of  things; 
and  that  for  fear  the  somnambulistic  state  should  come 
upon  her  again,  she  tied  her  arm  or  foot  to  the  bedstead, 
in  order  to  be  awakened  if  she  should  attempt  to  get  out 
of  bed.  But  she  had  had  no  more  attacks  of  the  disease. 

"  Perhaps  her  severe  crying  broke  it,"  said  he. 

I  made  many  inquiries  of  Mr.  G.  about  his  wife's  habits 
in  life,  her  general  health,  her  peculiar  troubles,  if  she  had 
an}r,  by  way  of  resolving  this  mystery  of  the  kleptomania 
connected  with  the  somnambulism  ;  and  from  all  I  could 
learn,  1  believe  that  she  was  one  of  the  most  conscientious 
and  best  of  mortals  in  her  normal  state,  and  I  was  led  to 
believe  that  the  kleptomania,  if  not  the  somnambulism,  was 
caused  by  diseases,  though  slight  ones,  peculiar  to  the 
female  sex ;  but  why  these  came  on  so  late  in  life,  (for 
Mrs.  Garretson  was  sixty-three  years  old,)  I  cannot  con- 
ceive, but  leave  that  for  the  doctors  to  decide. 

12 


THE  SORCERESS'  TRICK,  AND  HOW  SHE 
WAS  CAUGHT. 


CLASSIFICATION  OF  MEN  —  THE  SUPERSTITIOUS  ELEMENT  IV  MAN  —  THE 
OLD  CULTS  CONTINUED  IN  THE  NEW  —  FIRE  WORSHIP  —  THE  SORCERERS 
—  MY  I.I.I.AI.  FRIEND'S  STORY  A  LAUGHABLE  ONE  INDEED  —  THE  DE- 
SPONDENT OLD  MAID,  THOUGH  ENGAGED  TO  BE  MARRIED  —  AN  AUNT 

ARRIVES  IN  "THE  NICK  OF*  TIME" — THEY  HUNT  UP  A  FORTINE- 
TELLER  —  MRS.  SEYMOUR,  THE  SORCERESS,  AND  HER  PRETTY  LITTLE 
"ORATORY"  —  THE  "  PRIE-DIEU  "  —  THE  OLD  MAID  MARRIES — MRS. 
SEYMOUR'S  PLAN  FOR  INSURING  THE  AFFECTION  OF  HUSBANDS  —  HER 

POWERS  AS  A  CHARMER THE  SACRED  BOX  AND  ITS  FIVE  THOUSAND 

DOLLARS  CONTENTS  MRS.  SEYMOUR  IS  LOST  SIGHT  OF SEARCH  FOR 

HEK  IN  BROOKLYN  AND  AT  BOSTON  THE  CHARMED  BOX  OPENED  BY  MR. 

AND  MRS.  ,  AND  THE  CONTENTS  FOUND  TO  HAVE  CHANGED   FORM 

MATERIALLY —  MY   LEGAL   FRIEND   AND   I   LOOk   AFTER    MATTERS — A 

PORTION  OF  THE  TRANSFORMED  VALUABLES  FOUND A  MRS.  BRADLEY, 

A  "MEDIUM"  IN  BOSTON,  PROVES  TO  BE  THE  IDENTICAL  MRS.  SEY- 
MOUR  THE  HIGH-TONED  DEVOTEES  OF  BOSTON  —  SUDDEN  PROCEED- 
INGS TAKEN  MRS.  SEYMOUR  AND  IIKR  HUSBAND  COME  TO  TERMS 

RESULTS  —  RESPECTABLE     VICTIMS     OF     THE      SORCERERS     NUMEROUS 

THE  DUPES  IN  THE  "  ATHENS  OF   AMERICA." 

WHAT  the  human  race  might  have  become  without  the 
love  of  the  mysterious  or  marvellous  in  its  composition, 
would  be  a  pretty  subject  of  speculation  for  the  philoso- 
phers, but  one  which  human  genius  will  prove  perhaps  ever 
unable  to  solve.  There  are  three  classes  of  human  beings, 
—  or  so  I  am  apt  to  divide  them  in  my  "  philosophy,"  - 
the  good,  and  in  different  degrees,  sensible  ;  the  crafty ;  and 
the  simple  and  weak,  neither  positively  good  or  bad. 
These  lattor  two  divisions  comprehend  the  vast  majority 
of  mankind,  made  so,  to  a  great  extent,  by  the  institutions 
which  the  race  has,  in  its  ignorance,  wrought  out  for  itself. 
and  by  which  it  is  constantly  cursed,  until  one  by  one  it 

M 


SUN-WORSHIP.  299 

outgrows,  along  the  course  of  the  ages,  these  outrages 
upon  itself,  which  itself  has  imposed.  This  process  of 
outgrowing  we  call  progress,  and  so  it  is,  perhaps ;  but  it 
would  be  more  satisfactory  progress  if,  when  it  overrides 
or  abates  one  wrong  or  malicious  incumbrance  upon  a  race, 
it  could  or  would  also  avoid  the  establishment  of  another 
equally  bad.  The  love  of  the  mysterious  is,  to  a  great  ex- 
tent, the  religious  element  in  man.  Some  writers  hold  that 
it  is  such  to  the  full  extent ;  but  I  am  not  about  to  decide 
that,  even  for  myself  alone,  much  less  for  others.  True  it 
is,  however,  that  in  all  historic  time  this  element,  or  what- 
ever else  one  is  pleased  to  call  it,  has  been  the  medium 
through  which  the  intellectual  and  tyrant  forces  in  the  race 
have  subjected  the  weaker  to  their  sway.  The  ancient 
oracles  played  upon  the  superstitious  in  men  in  the  govern- 
ment of  whole  races  and  nations,  and  to-day  the  oracles  of 
old  are  reproduced  among  us  in  a  thousand  ways,  and  the 
religions  of  the  past,  in  their  symbolizations,  exist  among 
us,  and  exert  their  influence,  almost  unconsciously  to  the 
masses. 

For  example.  That  beautiful  cult,  or  religion  of  old,  — 
sun-worship,  —  is  traceable  in  modern  institutions,  and  the 
old  fire-worship,  so  wondrous,  etill  lives  in  that  word 
Purity  (from  the  Greek  word  pur,  fire),  which  is  the  ex- 
pression of  our  highest  or  deepest  sense  of  all  that  is 
morally  perfect ;  and  in  the  very  steeples  of  our  churches 
is  the  old  fire-worship  symbolized ;  for  the  steeple  is  but  a 
representation  of  the  old  obelisks,  which  were  themselves 
but  symbols  of  the  tall  shafts  of  fire  which  shot  up  from 
the  top  of  some  mountain,  like  Sinai,  when  the  worship- 
pers built  thereon  the  vast  £>cw-fires,  —  or  good,  i.  e.,  holy, 
—  fires  to  which  the  vast  assemblages  poured  forth  their 
devotions.  And  in  even  the  names  ef  the  days  of  the 
week  we  preserve  the  memories  of  the  old  superstitions, 
and  to  some  extent  the  superstitions  themselves  —  Sun-day, 
day  devoted  to  the  worship  of  the  sun,  and  so  on.  In 
Thurs-day,  or  Thor's-day,  we  are  kept  in  mind  of  the  old 


300  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

Scandinavian  god,  as  potent  in  the  estimation  of  his  wor- 
shippers ;is  the  Jehovah  of  the  Hebrews  was  to  them, 
tin  nigh  a  somewhat  different  character. 

Through  all  grades,  and  shades,  and  degrees  the  super- 
stitious element  of  to-day  finds  itself  fed.  The  sublime 
and  the  ridiculous  still  exists  as  of  old,  and  the  advertising 
columns  of  the  public  journals  tell  but  too  plainly  and  pain- 
fully of  the  susceptibility  of  the  masses  to  the  deceits  and 
frauds  to  which  the  superstitious  element  in  them  subjects 
them.  The  sorcerers  are  not  yet  extinct,  and  the  prcrphets, 
as  good  as  most  of  those  of  ancient  days,  and  magicians 
as  expert  as  those  whom  the  greater  magician,  Moses,  out- 
witted, are  still  to  be  found;  and  I  suspect  these  excel 
those  of  ancient  times  in  one  important,  the  most  impor- 
tant, art —  that  of  money-getting.  But  they  have  an  ad- 
vantage over  their  prototypes  in  that  they  have  the 
influence  of  the  public  journals  of  these  days  to  widely 
proclaim  themselves  —  to  make  their  pretensions  heard  by 
a  larger  audience.  I  suspect  that  many  a  reader  of  this 
would  be  surprised  to  learn,  could  he  be  statistically  in- 
formed, how  vast  is  the  number  of  the  victims  of  modern 
sorcery.  These  are  not  confined  to  the  lower  orders,  as 
many  an  intelligent  and  educated  man,  who  has  not  made 
the  special  matter  of  remark  here  a  study,  might  quite 
sensibly  suspect  None  of  the  conventional  grades  of 
society,  whether  the  same  be  measured  by  money,  by  the 
education  of  books,  or  what  is  called  "  blood,"  or  high 
hereditary  social  position,  is  lacking  in  them ;  and  it  is  re- 
markable that  the  victims  from  the  educated  circles  are  as 
much  more  intense,  generally,  in  their  superstitions,  as 
their  superiority  in  other  respects  to  the  uneducated  is 
marked  and  distinguished.  I  suppose  this  may  be  ac- 
counted for  thus :  Being  once  led  into  superstition,  the 
man  of  letters  resorts  to  his  pride  of  intellect  to  sustain 
himself  in  it,  and  deepen  his  convictions ;  for  although  we 
cannot  exaotly  believe  whatever  we  please,  —  for  the  charac- 
ter of  evidence  must  be  a  matter  of  some  consideration 


"THE   JOLLIEST   AFFAIR."  301 

with  us,  must  have  weight  with  us,  —  yet  when  we  are  led 
on  to  a  certain  point,  and  have  averred  our  belief  in  any 
absurdity,  we  are  disposed  to  admit  its  logical  consequences, 
however  wide  apart  from  good  sense  they  may  be. 

In  this  narrative  I  have  first  to  deal  with  parties  of  high 
social  position  —  of  education,  and  much  refinement,  of 
course,  —  but  descended  from  a  long  line  of  ancestors  more 
or  less  noted  for  their  inclination  to  believe  everything 
which  came  to  them  under  the  similitude  of  religion  or 
superstition  of  any  kind  —  anything  which  seemed  to 
them  inexplicable ;  anything,  in  other  words,  mysterious  to 
them. 

A  lawyer  of  my  acquaintance  —  in  fact  an  old  friend, 
who  had  employed  me  many  times  before,  especially  in  the 
ferreting  out  of  legal  evidence  in  criminal  matters  —  came 
one  day  into  my  office  with  a  broad  grin  on  his  face.  I 
was  in  pretty  good  humor,  and  was  beguiling  an  hour  or 
two,  —  while  I  was  awaiting  the  advent  of  a  party  who  I 
hoped  would  bring  me  some  valuable  news  of  the  working 
of  a  little  plot  of  mine  in  the  investigation  of  a  case, — 
with  Dickens's  Martin  Chuzzlewit.  Of  course  I  was  in 
good  humor,  enjoying  that  rare  word-painter's  faithful  pic- 
tures of  American  society  as  he  found  it ;  and  my  friend, 
the  lawyer,  was  of  course  enjoying  himself,  otherwise  why 
that  irresistible  grin,  which,  in  my  mood,  stirred  me  up  to 
outright  laughter  as  he  entered? 

"  What's  up  ?  "  I  said.  "  Deliver  yourself  instanter ;  for 
I  want  to  hear  the  fun." 

"  0,  ho,"  he  replied,  "  I've  the  jolliest  affair  to  tell  you 
of  that  ever  occurred  in  the  line  of  my  experience.  I  am 
counsel,  advocate,  and  judge  in  the  matter,  and  expected 
to  be  constable,  jury,  and  executioner,  all  in  one ;  for  the 
whole  thing,  involving  love  and  lovers,  '  potions  and  pills,' 
quacks,  schemers,  thieves,  and  everything  else,  is  left  iu 
my  hands,  and  I've  come  over  to  divide  the  honors  with 
you  — 

"  Well,  well ;  after  your  long  opening,  suppose  you  come 


302  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

down  to  the  points  in  the  matter  — '  judge,'  '  executioner,' 
or   whatever  you   please   to   call  yourself  in  the    pivm- 

"  To  begin,  then,  you  must  know  that  there's  a  part  of 
the  business  which  you  must  not  know  at  present,  and  that 
is.  the  names  of  the  people  I  am  about  to  tell  you  of. 
Those  people  occupy  a  very  high  position  in  society,  and 
their  case  is  the  funniest  thing  in  the  world,  Gottfridaiing 
their  rank,  life-time  associations,  and  the  man's  official  po- 
sition in  the  world,  or  rather  the  one  which  he  has  held,— 
a  very  high  one  under  the  government.  You  must  under- 
stand that  he  is  old  and  wealthy,  and  that  his  wife  is  a 
young  woman,  comparatively  speaking,  though  she  had 
arrived  at  that  degree  of  maturity  before  marriage  which 
entitles  a  lady  to  the  honors  of  an  old  maid.  She  is  ex- 
tremely well  educated,  comes  of  a  good  family,  and  has 
been  a  successful  teacher  in  her  day  in  a  ladies'  seminary. 
All  things  considered,  she  is,  in  the  general  way,  rath<Tr 
the  superior  of  her  husband.  This  much  to  begin  with,  to 
give  you  a  sort  of  inkling  of  how  extraordinary  the  case 
is ;  for  if  they  were  simply  a  couple  of  fools,  or  ordinary 
people,  the  matter  wouldn't  have  any  spice  in  it" 

"  Well,"  I  broke  in  as  he  paused,  "  go  on,  and  satisfy  my 
curiosity,  counsellor,  now  that  you've  whetted  it  up." 

"  Be  patient,"  said  he,  "  and  I  will,  but  I  am  always 
choked  with  the  comicality  of  the  affair  when  I  picture  it 
to  myself;  and  I  was  only  stopping  to  gather  a  little  dig- 
nity, to  go  on  reciting  the  serious  thing  to  you.  The  par- 
ties are  very  rich,  and  it's  only  a  matter  of  some  five 
thousand  dollars  anyhow  —  a  bagatelle  for  them.  They 
are  ugly  about  it,  considering  the  way  they,  or  rather  she, 
was  duped,"  —  and  here  the  lawyer  fairly  roared,  as  he 
slapped  his  hand  upon  his  knee,  over  the  thought  of  such 
people's  being  "taken  in  and  done  for"  by  the  arts  which 
usually  prevail  mostly  among  the  ignorant.  But  there  is 
no  telling  what  the  superstitious  element  in  the  mind  may 
not  lead  to. 


THE   KNAWING   FEAR.  303 

My  friend  went  on  to  say,  then,  that  about  the  time  of 
the  marriage  of  the  old  maid  in  question  with  the  rich  old 
man,  she  had,  in  brooding  over  her  future,  gotten  it  into 
her  head  in  some  way,  that  perhaps  his  affection,  —  of 
which  she  felt  pretty  contentedly  sure  for  the  time,  how- 
ever, —  might  wane  and  grow  less,  and  she  become  but  a 
slave  to  the  old  man  and  his  money.  Brooding  over 
this,  she  got  quite  melancholy  and  "  nervous."  She  really 
loved  the  old  man,  who  was  not  only  a  man  of  ability  and 
honors,  but  was  very  kind  of  soul.  Of  course,  too,  his 
great  wealth  was  no  objection  to  a  woman  who  could 
appreciate  the  value  of  a  comfortable  home,  or  enjoy  the 
refinements  of  a  luxurious  one. 

"  I  would  not  wish  to  intimate,"  said  the  lawyer,  "  that 
she  took  this  matter  of  wealth  into  consideration,  even 
lightly ;  for  I  like  to  assure  myself  once  in  a  while  that 
there  are  to  be  found  a  few  women  in  this  populous  vale 
of  tears,  who  have  considerations  superior  to  the  thought 
of  wealth ;  and,  verily,  this  woman  looks  to  me  like  one  of 
those." 

But  the  woman  got  nervous.  If  his  affection  should  fail, 
why,  she  would  become  only  a  prettily-dressed  bird  in  a 
handsome  cage,  with  enough  to  eat  and  drink,  but  without 
loving  companionship ;  excluded,  in  fact,  from  the  society 
of  her  old  and  poorer  friends,  and,  to  use  a  religious  phrase, 
unhappy  enough  to  be  practically  "  without  God  in  the 
world."  She  hardly  dared  to  mention  to  any  of  her  particu- 
lar friends  the  dreadful  thought  that  was  knawing  at  her 
heart,  and  growing  fiercer  every  day,  for  fear  they  would 
ridicule  her. 

"  Ladies  having  passed  a  certain  age  are  supposed  to  be 
peculiarly  sensitive  on  matters  touching  love  and  marriage, 
you  know,"  said  my  friend,  with  a  very  knowing  wink  in 
hii  eye. 

No,  she  had  no  friend  to  pour  out  her  soul  to  on  the 
very  point,  of  all  things,  the  most  dear  to  her.  Her  "  in- 
tended" had  exhibited  some  peculiarities  of  character 


304  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

which  she  did  not  understand,  and  now,  while  she  was 
brooding  <>ver  her  especial  grief,  he  was  naturally  enough 
more  rc\-cntric  than  ever.  Possibly  he,  too,  was  undergo- 
ing fears,  —  fear-  that  when  he  grew  older,  and  older  — 
and  he  was  far  in  advance  of  her  in  years,  —  that  her  affec- 
tion would  wane,  and  then  all  that  would  bind  her  to  him 
would  l>e  his  money.  Perhaps  he  had  caught  her  disease 
unconsciously.  Withal  the  condition  of  things  generally 
between  them,  in  their  silent  hearts,  must  have  been  any- 
thing but  pleasant  to  both  of  them.  The  lady  prayed  for 
light  to  know  her  duty  to  herself  and  her  coming  lord, — 
in  fact,  to  be  taught  from  on  high  whether  she  would  be 
doing  a  wrong  or  not  to  him,  to  marry  him,  —  for  her  fever 
had  burned  on  beyond  the  point  of  simple  selfishness. 
The  great  question  of  duty  and  right  had  seized -hold  of 
her  mind,  and  she  had  become  religiously  morbid  thereon. 
But  one  thing  she  thought  she  knew  for  a  certainty  —  that 
she  not  only  loved  him  now,  but  would  continue  to  love 
him,  always.  So  she  reflected  that  she  should  do  no  wrong 
to  him  in  marrying;  and  she  finally  got  to  the  resolution 
that  she  would  patiently  bear  his  coldness  and  neglect,  and 
even  his  tyranny,  if  he  should  display  anything  of  the  last, 
as  a  good  Christian  woman  ought  to,  —  and  the  time 
set  for  the  wedding  was  iast  drawing  near.  But  she  found 
this  resolution  of  Christian  fortitude  under  the  condition 
of  unrequited  love  rather  more  than  a  good  human  nature 
could  bear,  or  ought  ever  toNbe  asked  to  bear;  and  it  got 
to  be  an  awful  burden  to  her,  meek  and  lowly  though 
she  was. 

As  the  time  grew  shorter  before  the  wedding,  the  lady's 
wakeful  hours  at  night  grew  longer  and  more  burdensome, 
and  her  friends  bewail  to  notice  their  telling  effect  upon 
her  countenance,  and  whole  constitution,  in  fact.  Such  of 
them  as  wero  indelicate  enough  (and  who  ever  knew  many 
I-idies,  especially,  who  are  not  inclined  to  be  indelicate  at 
times  on  matters  of  love  and  marriage,  or  rather  towards 
those  indulging  the  one  and  contemplating  the  other?), — 


CLAIR-RY-VOY-ANTS   AND   SUCH.  305 

such,  ray  friend  went  on  to  say,  got  to  poking  fun  at  her 
a  little  ;  said  the  condition  she  contemplated  must  be  ter- 
rible, indeed,  since  it  wore  upon  her  so  much,  etc.  — all  of 
which  did  not  seem  to  amend  matters  much. 

But  finally,  only  three  or  four  days  before  the  time  set 
fur  the  wedding,  and  not  over  an  hour  after  her  old  lover 
had  called,  and  rolled  away  in  his  carriage,  —  he  having 
seemed  very  gloomy  that  day,  too,  —  an  old  aunt  of  the 
lady  came,  —  came  from  New  Orleans  to  pass  a  few  days 
with  her  niece,  —  and  she  found  the  latter  in  tears.  She 
had  heard  of  her  niece's  prospective  marriage ;  and  as  she 
was  a  demonstrative  old  lady,  and  very  sympathetic,  she 
both  pitied  her  niece,  and  spared  no  pains  in  attempting 
to  console  her,  and  finally  won  her  great  secret. 

"  La,  me  !  "  exclaimed  the  old  aunt ;  "  do  tell  —  is  that 
all  that's  troubling  you  so  ?  Now,  do  take  heart.  I  tell 
you  we  can  get  that  sore  spot  fixed  up,  —  cured  in  a  mighty 
short  time.  I  understand  all  about  it.  Fact  is,  I've  had 
such  an  experience  myself  in  my  day,  and  I've  known 
others  have  the  like,  and  I  got  it  all  made  right,  and  they 
did  too,  if  there's  any  believin' folks ;  but  some  folks  are 
curious  creatures — that's  true,  Mary,"  (for  that's  the  niece's 
first  name) ;  and  she  went  on  to  tell  her  "  as  how  "  she  didn't 
believe  in  witchcraft,  or  in  seers,  or  "  clair-ry-voy-ants  "  (as 
she  called  them),  or  in  fortune-tellers,  "  either  with  the  cards 
or  without  them,"  nor  "  in  them  as  sees  into  things  through 
crystals,  and  such  like,"  as  a  general  thing.  But  she  did 
believe  that  some  folks  had  a  magic  about  them,  by  which 
they  could  peer  into  the  future,  and  prevent  things  hap- 
pening that  might  otherwise  occur.  She  was  a  very  gar- 
rulous old  lady,  it  would  seem,  and  overwhelmed  her  niece 
with  instances  enough,  which  she  had  "known"  to  prove 
valuable,  of  the  mysterious  "power  of  some  people,"  to 
establish  a  general  rule  in  favor  of  all  seers'  pretensions. 

The  niece  was  just  in  the  mood  to  believe   in  anything 
that  seemed  likely  to  bring  her  any  relief,  and  asked  her 
aunt  for  her  advice  in  the  premises,  which  was  given,  of 
18  12* 


306  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

course,  and  was  to  the  effect  that  they  should  find  out  a 
good  fortune-teller,  and  visit  her  next  day.  But  the  timo 
was  short,  and  they  had  no  acquaintances  of  whom  they 
could  inquire.  The  aunt  sighed  deeply  over  the  fact  that 
New  Orleans  was  so  far  off;  "  for  if  it  wasn't,  we  would  go 
and  visit  old  Aunt  Betsy"  —  an  aged  negro  woman  — 
<;  right  off.  She's  always  sure  and  certain.  I've  tried  her 
a  hundred  times." 

"  What,  aunt !  a  hundred  times  ?  "  asked  Mary. 

"  Yes,  yes,  a  full  hundred  times." 

"  Why,  aunt,  then  I  am  afraid  you  do  believe  in  fortune- 
tellers." 

"  No,  no ;  I  don't.  I  told  you  that  I  don't,  generally 
speaking;  but  Aunt  Betsy  is. a  wonder,  if  she  is  black. 
Site  ain't  any  the  worse  for  that,  I  tell  you,  no  matter 
what  the  rest  of  the  blacks  are." 

Any  one  acquainted  with  the  character  of  the  people, 
who,  at  the  South,  put  their  trust  in  prophetic  old  negroes 
and  negresses,  need  no  further  hint  as  to  the  superstitious 
character  of  Mary's  aunt.  They  are  a  peculiar  class,  the 
like  of  whom  is  not  to  be  found  in  all  the  world  besides. 
They  are  weaker  than  the  idolaters  of  the  East,  and  are 
generally  a  sensuous,  if  not  sensual,  class,  they  who  wor- 
ship these  old  negroes,  and  there  are  a  great  many  of 
them.  The  aunt  was  not  only  superstitious,  but  enthusi- 
astic—  one  of  those  magnetic  creatures,  who,  at  times,  ex- 
ercise a  good  deal  of  influence  —  a  sort  of  "  psychologic" 
power  over  others;  and  in  Mary's  state  of  mind,  she  was 
not  much  disposed  to  resist  the  aunt's  advisory  sugges- 
tions. She  needed  sympathy  at  the  time,  and  was  willing 
to  accept  it  in  whatever  form  presented. 

With  no  one  to  inquire  of  as  to  a  "  successful  fortune- 
teller," the  aunt  and  Mary  consulted  the  newspapers,  de- 
termining to  select  among  the  advertisements  the  name 
of  the  "  medium,"  or  "  sight-seer,"  or  "  clairvoyant,"  or 
what  not,  who  appeared  to  reside  in  the  most  respectable 
quarters ;  and  they  were  not  long  in  determining,  through 


MRS.   SEYMOUR,   THE   SORCERESS.  307 

tlie  columns  of  the  Herald,  upon  a  Mrs.  Seymour,  then  re- 
siding in  Grand  Street.  This  "Mrs.  Seymour"  was  the 
wife  of  a  crafty  Irishman,  of  much  intelligence,  and  ex- 
tremely good  address,  by  the  name  of  Brady.  This  man 
was  capable  of  concocting  dark  designs;  and  although  his 
wife  was  also  a  cunning  person,  and  was  not  lacking  in 
real  skill  arid  strategy,  yet  it  was  generally  supposed, 
as  I  learned  on  investigating  this  case,  that  he  was  the 
subtle  "  power  behind  the  throne  "  when  any  great  cheat 
or  curious  deviltry  was  performed  by  her.  But  she  was 
a  •'  canny  "  woman,  after  all,  and  as  mild  and  attractive, 
when  she  pleased  to  be,  as  she  was  sharp  and  unscrupu- 
lous. Long  experience  had  given  her  great  facility  in 
necromantic  arts,  and  the  smoothness  of  her  tongue  was 
something  remarkable.  It  is  supposed  by  most  people, 
who  are  unacquainted  with  these  sorcerers,  that  they  are 
both  illiterate  and  unintelligent.  They  are  usually  igno- 
rant of  books;  but  they  are  by  no  means  lacking  in  intel- 
ligence, cultivated  and  sharpened  by  a  discipline  which 
books  can  hardly  give. 

"Mrs.  Seymour"  was  the  assumed  name  of  the  wife  — 
her  advertising  sobriquet  —  a  name  well  chosen,  since,  un- 
like her  real  name,  it  did  not  suggest  her  Irish  origin,  and 
therefore  forbid  Irish  servant  girls  from  visiting  her,  and 
leaving  with  her  a  dollar  or  two  dollars  a  time  for  advice 
on  the  subject  of  their  lovers,  marriages,  or  a  "  new  place  ' ' 
to  work.  The  Irish  in  this  country,  at  least,  have  no  re- 
spect for  sorcerers  of  Irish  birth.  The  name,  tco,  sounds 
not  unaristocratic ;  something  substantial  about  it ;  has  not 
the  appearance  of  being  assumed,  like  those  of  "  Madame 
Leclerque,"  "  Madame  Duponleau,"  and  other  high-sound- 
ing aliases  of  some  fat,  dumpy  English  or  Welsh  woman, 
or  some  dark  weazen-faced  Polish  hag,  whose  real  name  is 
perhaps  Johnson,  Jones,  or  Thomascowitch. 

"  Mrs.  Seymour  "  was  a  middle-sized  woman,  not  ugly 
of  features,  not  handsome,  with  a  sort  of  mobile  face, 
which  could  easily  assume  any  expression  which  her  sub- 


308  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

tie,  crafty  mind  might  suggest.  Her  house  was  a  decent 
abode,  pretty  well  furnished  ;  and,  in  this  respect,  far  above 
the  character  of  the  houses  which  most  "  mediums  "  and 
fortune-tellers  inhabit,  presenting  a  cosy,  inviting  appear- 
ance in  the  parlor.  Mr.  Brady,  a  man  of  wholesome  face 
and  good  address,  was  usually  at  home  to  aid  in  entertain- 
ing visitors,  especially  ladies,  who  called  upon  "  Mrs.  Sey- 
mour "  professionally. 

To  "  Mrs.  Seymour  "  went  the  aunt  and  Mary,  and  at 
first  had  a  "  sitting  "  with  her,  in  order  to  test  her  capacity 
at  fortune-telling.  On  entering  the  house,  they  had  first 
encountered  the  shrewd  Mr.  Brady,  who  probably  at  once 
suspected  that  the  younger  woman  was  revolving  matri- 
monial matters  in  her  mind,  and  having  opportunity  to 
epeak  with  his  wife  in  private  before  she  entered  the 
room,  told  her,  probably,  his  suspicions.  At  all  events, 
Mrs.  Seymour  had  hardly  Bitten  clown,  and  thrown  herself 
into  her  accustomed  trance,  before  she  told  Mary  that  she 
had  come  there  upon  a  question  of  marriage,  and  that 
there  were  troubles  in  the  way,  and  invited  her  to  free 
her  mind.  The  simple-hearted  Mary  and  the  credulous 
aunt  were  taken  aback  at  once  by  Mrs.  Seymour's  sudden 
approach  to  the  very  subject  on  their  minds,  and  the  aunt 
exclaimed,  "  There,  Mary,  I  told  you  so ! " 

The  ladies  did  "  free  their  minds "  immediately,  and 
Mrs.  Seymour  begged  to  be  excused  for  a  few  moments. 
.She  said  it  was  a  case  involving  nice  points,  and  she 
wished  to  act  cautiously;  that  in  cases  of  the  kind,  where 
the  happiness  of  parties  hung  for  life  upon  a  decision 
which  must  be  so  soon  made,  she  was  in  the  habit  of 
taking  counsel  of  her  "  heavenly  Father,"  and  in  her  pri- 
vate oratory  to  approach  him  in  prayer.  She  started  from 
the  room,  and  then  suddenly  returned,  and  said,  "  Ladies, 
perhaps  you  would  like  to  see  a  beautiful  ' prie-dieu,,1 
which  I  have  in  my  oratory  ;  a  beautiful  present  to  mo 
by  the  Duke  of  Argyle,  when  I  was  visiting  Scotland,  in 
honor  of  a  successful  clairvoyant  discovery  which,  with 


THE   SORCERESS'  PRIE-DIEU.  309 

the  help  of  Almighty  God,  I  was  enabled  to  make  for 
him." 

The  ladies  followed  her  up  to  the  little  "  hall  bedroom," 
eo  customary  .in  certain  New  York  house?,  and  which  was 
quite  neatly  fitted  up.  There  was  the  prie-dieu  —  a  thing 
which  these  ladies  had  never  seen,  or  indeed  heard  of  be- 
fore. They  asked  "  Mrs.  Seymour  "  what  it  was  for ;  and 
she  explained  to  them  that  it  was  a  chair  to  pray  in,  and 
showed  them  how  to  kneel  and  sit,  and  where  to  put  the 
prayer-book. 

Duly  they  withdrew,  greatly  edified  by  the  pious,  good 
lady's  conduct,  while  she  tarried  for  a  while  to  "  pray," 
and  came  down  at  last  to  the  parlor  with  a  very  saintly 
countenance  on  —  quite  "illumined"  in  fact.  She  had 
been  inspired  with  counsel  how  Mary  was  to  proceed  with 
her  coming  husband,  in  order  to  increase  and  secure  for- 
ever his  love.  Mrs.  Seymour  had  learned  all  she  needed 
to  know  from  Mary's  full  confession,  spiced  with  sugges- 
tions by  the  garrulous  aunt. 

She  had  learned  that  Mary's  coming  husband  was  very 
rich ;  and  she  began  by  saying,  that  on  entering  into  mar- 
ried life,  any  great  disparities  between  the  parties  —  in 
riches,  age,  accomplishments,  etc.  —  were  apt  to  prove 
disastrous  in  the  end.  The  rich  husband,  for  example, 
would  taunt  his  poor  wife  sometimes  with  her  poverty, 
and  the  young  wife  might  throw  the  fact  of  age  and  in- 
firmity in  the  face  of  her  old  husband,  or  either  accuse  the 
other  of  ignorance.  All  these  things  would  bring  severe 
troubles  in  the  end.  But  the  greatest  trouble  frequently 
came  from  disparity  in  social  position  —  where  a  man  or 
woman  of  high  station  had  married  a  partner  of  low'sta- 
tion.  In  this  case  she  was  glad  to  see  that  this  trouble 
would  not  exist.  The  parties  were  of  equal  rank  in  re- 
spectability and  social  surroundings.  The  husband's  great 
riches  were  the  only  thing  to  fear.  Better  marry  a  poor 
husband,  and  plod  on  with  him,  and  make  one's  own  for- 
tune, than  marry  a  rich«man  whose  love  might  soon  cool. 


310  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

There  would  come  a  domestic  hell  between  the  parties : 
among  low  people,  quarrelling,  and  absolute  fighting,  now 
:m<l  then;  among  people  of  higher  grade,  a  genteel  indif- 
ference, * —  no  ugly  words,  but  cold,  cruel  demeanor,  etc.,  — 
worse,  a  great  deal,  than  actual  physical  violence  through 
which  the  angry  passions  would  exhaust  themselves,  and 
after  which  repentance  and  "  making  up"  were  frequent. 
But  in  the  other  case,  —  in  the  higher  grade,  —  no  such 
thing  would  occur  as  "  making  up,"  and  the  most  luxuri- 
ant home  would  become  a  prison,  or  a  grave  rather,  of  the 
affections  —  a  horrible  life  to  lead,  out  of  which  there  was 
no  escape  for  parties  who  valued  public  opinion,  or  who, 
as  in  the  case  of  a  dependent  wife,  had  no  haven  of  peace 
to  resort  to,  no  means  of  support  —  and  much  more  said 
Mrs.  Seymour,  in  her  grave,  effective  way. 

So  solemn  was  she  that  the  timid,  fearful  Mary  cried, 
and  the  old  aunt  became  all  of  a  tremor,  and  poured  forth 
torrents  of  caressing  words  upon  poor  Mary.  But  Mrs. 
Seymour  relieved  their  distress  to  great  extent,  by  in- 
forming them  that  when  at  prayer,  the  "  dear  Almighty 
God  "  (to  use  her  own  expression)  had  favored  her  with 
a  vision,  which  she  had  interpreted.  There  were  many 
ways,  she  said,  to  preserve  a  husband's  or  wife's  love. 
All  these  ways  were  well  known  to  the  scientific.  They 
were  always  effective,  were  these  various  means,  when 
properly  applied.  She  could  have  told  them  at  once,  with- 
out resorting  to  counsel  with  her  "  heavenly  Father,"  of 
what  would  probably  be  effective  in  this  case ;  but  she 
was  glad  she  had  resorted  to  prayer  first,  because,  although 
she  would  have  taken  very  much  the  same  course  pointed 
out  *n  the  vision,  yet  she  might  not  have  been  so  thorough 
in  her  counsel,  and  would  not  have  felt  such  certainty  or 
confidence  in  it.  The  ladies  lifted  up  their  hands  again, 
and  hung  with  confiding  delight,  and  with  believing  smiles 
upon  their  faces,  upon  every  word  Mrs.  Seymour  uttered. 
She  told  them,  that  in  answer  to  her  prayer,  she  saw  a 
group  of  angels  descending  from  the  ^avens.  They  wore 


WHAT  THE   ANGELS  WEAR.  311 

beautiful  robes  of  various  colors.  Here  she  stopped  to 
tell  them  that  it  was  a  popular  fallacy  to  suppose  that  the 
angels  all  wore  white  robes ;  that  such  a  uniform  would 
be  inconsistent  with  Nature's  usual  course ;  that  the  God 
of  Nature  loved  variety,  —  infinite  variety, —  and  there- 
fo.e  he  had  exemplified  it  all  through  his  works.  The 
ladies  were  delighted  with  Mrs.  Seymour's  eloquent  words, 
and  she  went  on  to  tell  them  that  she  saw  these  angels 
decorating  each  other  with  amulets,  and  souvenirs,  and 
ornaments  of  all  kinds,  beautiful  brilliants  more  dazzling 
than  earthly  diamonds,  etc.,  and  she  noticed  that  each 
ornament  was  blessed  by  a  beautiful  priestess  before  it  was. 
passed  from  one  angel  to  the  other,  and  when  the  latter 
assumed  it  she  observed  that  his  or  her  face  lighted  up 
with  a  new  and  glorious  expression  of  love  for  the  gems ; 
that  these  angels  were  of  apparently  different  degrees  of 
age,  which  suited  Mary  to  hear,  of  course. 

Thus  Mrs.  Seymour  went  on  with  her  pious  rigmarole, 
which  she  managed,  by  her  cunning  imagination,  to  make 
very  charming,  and  finally  said  that,  though  the  vision  was 
easy  enough  of  interpretation,  yet,  in  this  case  of  great 
importance,  she  had  prayed  for  an  interpretation,  and  was 
at  once  '•  impressed  "  with  this  solution.  It  would  be  wise 
for  Mary,  she  said,  to  put  off  all  care  from  her  mind,  from 
the  present  moment,  with  the  belief  that  she  should  be 
happy  with  her  husband,  as  would  be  the  case  if  she  fol- 
lowed the  advice  ;  she  would  retain  his  love  forever.  Mar- 
ry him  on  the  day  appointed,  be  cheerful  and  kind,  and 
have  no  unpleasant  forebodings,  as  she  need  have  none, 
and  then,  as  fast  as  she  could  collect  together  all  valu- 
ables which  he  had  been  in- the  habit  of  wearing  on  his 
person,  as  ornaments,  or  carrying  in  his  pocket,  such  as 
watches,  jewelry  of  all  kinds,  especially  of  the  rich  kinds, 
such  as  diamonds,  and  all  the  money  which  he  had  actually 
handled  (for  it  was  necessary,  she  said,  that  he  must  have 
touched  it,  and  it  would  not  do  for  her  to  get  a  draft  from 
him,  arid  go  to  the  bank  and  draw  it  herself,  unless  she 


312  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

should  afterwards  put  it  in  his  hands,  and  naively  ask  him 
to  count  it  for  hex),  —  all  these  things  she  was  to  get,  and 
the  more  of  them  and  the  greater  their  value,  the  surer 
would  be  the  spell  which  was  to  be  worked.  These  things, 
as  she  procured  them,  she  was  from  time  to  time  to  bring 
to  Mrs.  Seymour,  who  would  operate  with  them  as  in  the 
vision  directed.  The  lady  would  then  take  them  home 
and  put  them  in  a  box,  and  then  Mrs.  Seymour  would  visit 
her  house  and  charm  the  whole  box,  which  the  lady  would 
keep,  for  a  few  weeks,  as  near  herself  as  she  could  all 
the  while  without  inconvenience,  and  the  spell  would  thus 
.  be  worked.  The  ladies  looked  in  wonder,  and  believed. 
Airs.  Seymour  charged  them  fifty  dollars  for  her  counsel; 
but  the  ladies  not  chancing  to  have  so  much  in  their 
purses,  she  consented  to  take  twenty-five  then,  and  wait 
till  after  the  marriage,  and  when  Mary  should  bring  the 
first  article  to  be  charmed,  for  the  other  twenty -five  dol- 
lars. This  was  all  fair,  and  pleased  the  ladies,  who  went 
away  happy,  it  seems. 

The  marriage  took  place.  The  old  man  having  some 
estates  in  Canada,  which  needed  looking  after,  made  his 
bridal  tour  in  the  now  Dominion  of  Canada ;  and  with  Que- 
bec as  his  central  point,  travelled  about  the  province  for 
some  three  weeks,  with  his  new  wife. 

He  was  very  happy,  and  so  was  Mary.  They  returned 
to  New  York  duly,  and  in  the  course  of  a  few  weeks  Mary, 

now  Mrs.  Mary ,  visited  Mrs.  Seymour,  with  her  first 

batch  of  articles  to  be  charmed.  These  were  a  watch, 
a  very  elegant  one,  profusely  ornamented  witli  diamonds, 
which  had  belonged  to  the  old  gentleman's  former  wife, 
but  which  Mrs.  Mary  had  discovered  that  he  had  some- 
times carried,  and  a  large  diamond  ring  which  he  had  once 
worn,  but  which,  on  account  of  an  injury  to  the  finger 
which  it  fitted,  he  had  laid  aside,  with  some  trinkets  of  val- 
ue. Taking  these  to  her  "oratory,"  Mrs.  Seymour  pretended 
to  have  charmed  them,  and  then  brought  them  back  to  Mrs. 
Mary,  and  told  her  to  get  a  box  of  suitable  size,  and  place 


THE    CHARMED   BOX.  313 

them  in  it,  also  the  other  things  that  she  should  bring,  to 
get  them  charmed.  While  Mrs.  Mary  was  consulting  with 
her  in  regard  to  the  box  she  should  get,  Mrs.  Seymour 
happened  to  think  of  one  which  she  had,  and  which  she 
would  as  lief  give  to  Mrs.  Mary  as  not,  and  she  went  to 
her  side-board  drawer  and  brought  a  little  square-shaped 
enamelled  papier-machS  box,  neat,  but  cheap  ;  she  said  this 
would  do,  and  it  could  be  sealed  so  easily  when  it  should 
be  filled.  Mrs.  Mary  wished  to  pay  her  for  it,  but  Mrs. 
Seymour  would  not  allow  her  to  do  so  ;  and  the  box,  with 
the  watch,  etc.,  in  it,  went  off  with  Mrs.  Mary,  who  had 
paid  Mrs.  Seymour  the  other  twenty-five  dollars.  Mrs. 
Mary  followed  Mrs.  Seymour's  counsels  as  speedily  as  she 
could,  and  was  soon  at  the  latter's  house  with  the  other 
matters  of  jewelry,  this  time  bringing  a  very  valuable 
brooch,  which  was  once  the  property  of  the  former  wife  ; 
and  Mrs.  Mary  had  a  piece  of  her  own  cunning  to  tell  Mrs. 
Seymour. 

In  order  that  the  brooch  might  come  under  the  rule  of 
having  been  worn  on  the  person  of  the  husband,  she  had 
pinned  it  on  to  his  night-shirt  when  he  was  asleep,  and 
laid  awake  and  watched  it  there  for  an  hour  or  more.  Mrs. 
Seymour  rewarded  this  piece  of  stratagem  with  her  au- 
gust approval,  and  told  Mrs.  Mary  that  it  would  do  just  as 
well  to  lay  the  things  under  his  pillow,  and  if  she  found 
anything  more  which  he  had  not  worn,  to  put  it  there. 
She  suggested  that  whole  sets  of  silver  spoons  could  be 
placed  there  at  any  time ;  which  was  a  happy  thought  for 
Mrs.  Mary,  who  wished  to  get  all  the  value  she  could  into 
the  box,  and  she  told  Mrs.  Seymour  that  there  was  in 
the  house,  but  never  used,  a  set  of  gold  spoons,  a  pres- 
ent from  some  of  her  husband's  rich  relatives.  In  time 
these  were  in  the  box.  But  to  make  the  matter  sure  as 
to  value,  Mrs.  Mary  begged  of  her  husband  the  sum  of 
two  thousand  dollars  one  day,  when  he  had  sold  a  piece  of 
real  estate  in  Brooklyn,  and  realized  some  ten  thousand 
dollars  advance  over  cost.  This  money  was  charmed  and 


314  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

put  into  the  box,  and  finally  Mrs.  Seymour  was  slyly  taken 
in  a  carriage  to  the  house  by  Mrs.  Mary,  in  order  to  put 
on  the  finishing  stroke,  and  seal  up  the  box.  She  took  her 
wax  and  a  peculiar  seal  with  her ;  and  Mrs.  Mary  and  she, 
being  duly  closeted,  the  box  was  nicely  sealed  up,  with  all 
the  valuables  in  it,  money  and  -all,  amounting  to  about  five 
thousand  dollars.  Mrs.  Seymour  then  wished  to  be  left 
alone  in  the  room  for  a  few  moments,  while  she  prayed, 
and  invoked  a  peculiar  charm  on  the  box.  Mrs.  Mary,  of 
course,  consented.  Presently  Mrs.  Seymour  came  out  of 
the  room,  handed  her  the  box,  and  went  with  her  to  the  bed- 
room to  see  it  properly  deposited  in  its  hiding-place,  —  all 
this  while  the  gentleman  was  growing  better  and  better, 
kinder  and  kinder,  to  his  wife  ;  and  he  was  "  splendid  "  to 
begin  with,  she  said.  But  this  increased  affection  was 
attributed  to  the  charms.  What  would  it  not  become  if 
these  remained  near  her  there  in  the  box  for  two  months, 
as  Mrs.  Seymour  directed? 

After  two  months,  Mrs.  Seymour  would  call,  if  Mrs. 
Mary  had  no  occasion  to  call  her  before,  which  she  was  to 
do,  if  her  husband  showed  any  signs  of  failing  affection, 
and  would  then  open  the  box  for  Mrs.«Mary ;  for  it  was 
necessary,  as  a  part  of  the  work,  that  she  should  open  tho 
box  in  such  a  way  as  not  to  break  the  spell.  The  two 
months  went  past,  and  Mrs.  Seymour  did  not  call.  Mrs. 
Mary  sent  for  her  to  come,  but  found  that  she  had  left  that 
house  —  gone  to  Brooklyn  to  live,  somewhere.  She  tried 
to  hunt  her  up,  but  unavailingly  ;  at  last,  after  some  three 
months  and  a  half  had  passed,  she  heard  she  was  in  Bos- 
ton, and  Mrs.  Mary  made  an  errand  on  there,  her  indul- 
gent husband  accompanying  her,  and  there  she  privately 
sought  for  Mrs.  Seymour.  But  she  could  not  find  her, 
and  so  let  matters  rest.  But,  eventually,  her  husband 
telling  some  relative  visiting  him,  about  the  gold  spoons, 
and  seeking  them  to  show  him,  failed  to  find  them;  and 
Mis.  Mary  got  very  nervous  over  it,  and  at  last  told  him 
that  they  were  not  stolen,  as  he  suspected,  but  where  they 


A   HOPELESS   CASE.  315 

were ;  and  after  much  mental  struggle,  told  him  how  they 
came  there.  He  was  delighted  with  her  great  desire  to 
preserve  his  love,  for  it  was  a  most  genuine  case  of  deep 
affection  on  his  part ;  but  he  gently  laughed  at  her,  never- 
theless, and  declared  that  Mrs.  Seymour  was  a  great  cheat ; 
that  she  had,  by  her  chicanery,  won  the  fifty  dollars  ;  "  and 
she  found  you  and  your  aunt  such  easy  disciples,"  said  he, 
"  the  great  wonder  is,  that  she  did  not  abstract  more  money 
from  you.  But  we'll  open  the  box  now,  and  get  the  spoons, 
and  you'll  do  what  you  please  with  the  rest ;  "  and  the}' 

opened  the  box,  breaking  the  peculiar  seals,  and-  found 

nothing  but  a  few  small  stones  and  bits  of  iron,  done  up 
in  cotton-wool,  to  keep  them  from  rattling,  and  weighing, 
perhaps,  as  much  as  the  contents  supposed  to  be  there. 

It  was  evident  then  to  the  old  gentleman,  that  the  wo- 
man must  have  brought  a  box  with  her  on  her  last  visit 
to  the  house,  a  fac-simile  of  the  one  which  Mrs.  Mary  had 
filled  with  valuables  and  money.  The  things  were  of  such 
a  nature,  that  the  old  gentleman  said  it  was  of  no  use  to 
try  to  hunt  up  Mrs.  Seymour  and  get  them  back.  She 
would  deny  all ;  besides,  there  was  the  risk  of  his  wife's 
being  exposed  in  her  foolish  credulity,  and  he  wouldn't 
have  that  known  for  ten  times  the  value  of  the  property 
lost,  he  said.  So  they  agreed  to  let  it  pass. 

But  the  thing  preyed  on  Mary's  mind.  She  wrote  to 
her  aunt,  —  who  had  then  gone  away,— a  doleful  story, 
and  upbraided  her  partly  for  her  connection  in  the  matter. 
The  poor  old  aunt  was  sadly  affected,  and  insisted  that 
some  step  ought  to  be  taken  to  find  Mrs.  Seymour,  and  to 
punish  her ;  and  Mary  felt  so  too,  and  talked  about  it  till 
the  old  gentleman  thought  he  would  take  some  step  about 
it,  and  he  consulted  me.  I  have  devised  some  plans;  but 
they  are  good  for  nothing,  and  I've  come  over  to  tell  you 
the  funny  story,  and  see  what  you  think  of  it." 

Such  was  the  substance  of  the  lawyer's  tale  ;  and  we 
had  a  good  laugh  over  it,  and  contrived  together  what 
might  be  done.  I  told  him  it  was  a  hopeless  case,  pretty 


316  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

much,  unless  we  could  find  Mrs.  Seymour,  and  these  things 
in  her  possession,  which  it  was  absurd  to  expect,  unless, 
by  inquiring  of  the  parties  who  suffered  the  loss,  I  could 
learn  more  about  the  things  taken.  We  both  resolved  that 
the  watch  was  too  valuable  to  be  destroyed,  and  there 
might  be  other  things  saved,  and  sold,  perhaps,  here  and 
there.  Accident  might  give  a  clew  to  the  whereabouts 
of  Mrs.  Seymour  and  the  things. 

The  lawyer  visited  the  parties,  and  got  their  consent  to 
take  me  into  the  case,  and  I  visited  them  —  learned  what 
things  were  taken;  examined  the  box,  and  found  on  it  a 
peculiar  mark,  which  I  copied  exactly  ;  and  I  also  got  an 
accurate  description  of  the  watch,  with  the  maker's  name, 
the  number  of  the  watch,  and  so  forth.  This  was  a  superb 
affair  for  a  lady's  watch,  and  was  worth,  at  least,  with  its 
chain  and  diamonds,  eight  hundred  dollars.  I  concluded 
that  it  was  not  probably  destroyed.  It  had  perhaps  been 
sold  or  pawned ;  and  I  made  close  search  in  many  jewelers' 
establishments  and  pawn  shops  for  it  in  New  York,  and 
not  finding  it,  advertised  for  it  in  the  Boston  and  Phila- 
delphia papers,  stating  that  the  subscriber  had  such  and 
such  a  watch,  and  would  give  a  thousand  dollars  for  its 
mate,  "  Xo.  1230,"  if  in  good  condition,  and  added  that  it 
was  known  to  be  in  this  country.  I  signed  "  Henry  Ro- 
inaine  Brown,  Agent  for  the  Earl  of  Derby,"  and  made 
an  address  in  Liverpool,  England,  and  in  New  York.  The 
object  of  this  the  reader  can  readily  see.  1  soon  got  a 
letter  from  Baltimore,  and  in  consequence  found  the  watch. 
It  had  passed  through  several  hands  to  the  owner,  the 
wife  of  a  Mr.  Hurlbut,  a  large  merchant.  He  had  an- 
swered the  advertisement  out  of  respect  to  the  Earl  of 
Derby(!),  with  no  suspicion  whatever  that  the  watch  had 
been  stolen.  Mrt  Hurlbut  required  the  property  to  be 
thoroughly  proven  as  that  of  the  old  gentleman  in  New 
York,  which  it  was  fortunately  easy  to  do,  as  the  bill  of  it 
from  the  importing  house  had  been  saved.  Still  it  was 
necessary  to  prove  the  theft,  for  it  might  have  been  sold ; 


TRACKING  THE   SORCERESS.  -317 

and  here  was  a  chance  for  a  lawsuit,  which  the  New  York 
man  did  not  want. 

But  Mr.  Hurlbut  was  willing  to  advance  some  money, 
while  he  held  on  to  the  watch,  to  ferret  out  Mrs.  Seymour. 
"  Perhaps  she  could  settle  the  matter,  or  had  some  rela- 
tives who  could,"  he  said.  My  client,  too,  took  courage, 
and  resolved  to  spend  some  money  in  the  matter,  and  I 
went  to  work  to  find  Mrs.  Seymour.  Meanwhile,  through 
the  peculiar  mark  on  the  bottom  of  the  box,  I  managed 
to  find  out  where  Mrs.  Seymour  had  purchased  it,  and 
learned,  as  I  supposed  before,  that  she  had  bought  two  on 
the  same  occasion ;  and,  fortunately,  I  found  that  she  had, 
when  selecting  the  boxes,  occupied  a  good  deal  of  time, 
giving  the  clerk  a  great  deal  of  vexation,  and  he  felt  sure 
he  should  know  her.  Besides,  she  had  offered  a  counter- 
feit bill  in  payment  for  them ;  and  when  informed  that  the 
bill  was  bad,  had  declared  her  surprise,  and  rummaged  her 
purse  for  good  money,  without  finding  enough  into  twenty- 
five  cents,  which  she  said  she  would  call  and  pay  next 
day,  and  so  was  allowed  to  take  away  the  boxes.  So  the 
clerk  thought  he  should  surely  know  her,  although  the 
lady  did  not  call  the  next  day.  I  tracked  Mrs.  Seymour 
from  her  place  in  Grand  Street,  where  her  sign  still  re- 
mained, and  business  was  carried  on  by  a  younger  medium, 
who  assumed  her  name,  and  divided  the  spoils  with  her, 
probably,  over  to  Brooklyn,  down  to  Philadelphia,  where 
she  sold  the  watch,  and  up  to  Boston. 

Brady,  her  husband,  had  gone  the  rounds  with  her.  I 
searched  every  possible  place  in  Boston,  and  engaged  a 
detective  there.  I  had  been  able  to  secure  several  photo- 
graphs of  the  woman,  and  of  her  husband,  in  New  York ; 
and  with  one  of  these,  the  Boston  detective  was  able  to 
make  her  out,  he  thought,  one  day.  He  followed  the  wo- 
man, and  at  last  abandoned  the  "  game,"  when  he  found 
that  she  was  in  company  with  people  of  high  character, 
and  entered  with  them  one  of  the  finest  residences  in  Ver- 
non  Street ;  and,  moreover,  was  told  by  a  servant  of  the 


31  b  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

house  that  she  was  a  Mrs.  "Bradley,''  from  Portland,  Me. 
He  concluded  that  he  was  mistaken.  We  finally  learned 
Brady  was  not  like  "  Seymour,"  an  assumed  name,  and 
that  the  husband  had  wealthy  relatives  in  Boston ;  and 
then  conceiving  that  the  detective  might  not  have  been 
mistaken  in  supposing  he  recognized  "  Mrs.  Seymour/'  we 
laid  seige  to  the  Vernon  Street  house,  till  we  satisfied  our- 
selves that  "Mrs.  Bradley"  and  "Mrs.  Seymour  "were 
one  and  the  same.  But  how  did  she  get  there  ?  Boston 
is  full  of  people,  in  high  rank,  who  are  spiritualists,  and 
who  keep  "  mediums  "  lor  themselves,  and  do  not  visit  the 
advertising  mediums,  to  be  fgund  there  in  such  numbers, 
even  to  this  day. 

We  traced  Brady  out  too,  and  found  him  a  chief  clerk  in 
a  house  on  Washington  Street,  in  which  his  brother  was  a 
partner.  My  friend,  the  detective,  made  his  acquaintance, 
and  managed  to  learn  from  him  that  he  was  worth  several 
thousand  dollars.  He  had  two  building  lots  in  New  York, 
which  he  had  bought  for  a  song,  some  four  years  before, 
but  which  would  be  worth,  he  said,  fifty  thousand  dollars 
in  less  than  ten  years.  My  friend,  the  detective,  wished 
to  buy  these,  and  they  got  on  such  good  terms  that  Brady, 
in  the  course  of  a  few  days,  accepted  his  invitation  to  "  go 
down  to  York,"  on  his,  the  detective's,  expense,  and  when 
there  showed  him  the  lots,  and  told  him  confidentially  that 
they  stood  in  his  wife's  name,  as  he  had  failed  in  business 
some  years  before. 

W  thought  we  had  enough  materials  together  to  com- 
mence the  attack,  and  my  friend,  the  lawyer,  managed  to 
bring  a  suit  in  such  a  way  that  the  building  lots  were 
attached,  and  then  wrote  me  at  Boston  to  "  go  ahead."  I 
proceeded  at  once  to  the  house  in  Vernon  Street,  and  in- 
quired for  Mrs.  Bradley.  She  had,  meanwhile,  moved  her 
quarters  to  the  residence  of  a  distinguished  clerical  gen- 
tleman in  Hancock  Street,  whose  wife  was  a  spiritualist, 
and  a  u  medium  "  besides.  I  called  upon  Mrs.  Bradley  there, 
and  having  a  private  "  seance  "  with  her  as  a  "  medium," 


SWOONING   IMPROPERLY.  319 

until  I  thought  I  had  studied  her  enough,  told  her  that  I 
was  very  much  pleased  with  the  communication  she  had 
brought  me  from  my  "  deceased  wife  "  (who  was  then  liv- 
ing in  New  York,  one  of  the  healthiest  and  jolliest  women 
in  the  land,  and  likely  to  live,  perhaps,  till  the  '''spirits" 
are  all  dead) ;  and  that  now  I  had  a  communication  to 
make  to  her;  and  that  I  did  not  wish  to  disturb  her  peace, 
or  expose  her  conduct  in  life,  and  should  not  do  so  if  she 
kept  quiet.  She  wanted  to  know  "  what  in  the  name  of 
goodness  "  I  talked  to  her  in  that  way  for.  I  told  her  it 
wasn't  I  that  was  talking,  that  I  was  only  the  "  medium  " 

through  whom  Mrs.  Mary (using  the  full  name  now), 

of  New  York,  was  speaking,  and  that  she  had  come  to  ask 
her  what  she  did  with  that  little  charm  box,  and  its  con- 
tents, for  which  she  substituted  the  box  of  stones  and  iron. 

"  Mrs.  Bradley,"  alias  "  Seymour,"  turned  pale  as  a  sheet, 
and  tried  to  swoon.  She  was  a  little  too  quick  in  the  play, 
and  hadn't  declared,  as  her  true  role  was,  that  she  didn't 
know  what  1  meant ;  so  she  waked  up,  and  declared  it ;  and 
I  told  her  to  be  tranquil ;  that  we  had  got  the  property  all 
attached  ;  knew  where  the  watch  was,  and  had  her  prop- 
erly identified  on  the  day  she  bought  the  two  boxes  at 
such  and  such  a  store.  I  looked  her  calmly  in  the  eye 
while  I  said  this ;  and  she  was  not  at  a  loss  to  discover 
that  I  knew  what  I  was  saying. 

"  Now  madam,"  said  I,  "  all  that  we  want  is,  that  you 
save  us  the  trouble  and  time  of  a  twit.  We  shall  arrest 
you,  and  have  you  taken  to  New  York,  and  tried  crimi- 
nally, as  well  as  prosecute  the  civil  suit,  unless  you  are 
willing  to  settle  the  matter  quietly ;  and  I  can't  give  you 
any  time.  An  officer  is  awaiting  my  call  close  by  here ;  " 
(indeed,  he  was  in  the  porch  of  the  house  at  the  time)  "  and 
unless  you  are  willing  to  get  your  bonnet  and  'shawl,  and 
accompany  me  at  once  to  Mr.  Brady,  and  settle  this  mat- 
ter, we  will  arrest  you,  and  take  you  where  you'll  be  kept 
safe  till  we  get  a  requisition  for  you  from  the  governor  of 
New  York." 


320  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

I 
"  Mrs.  Seymour  "  had   had,  a*  I  knew  before,  more  or 

less  to  do  with  legal  matters,  and  she  saw  the  force  of 
things  at  once.  She  accompanied  me  to  the  store  where 
her  husband  was  engaged,  the  officer  following  at  a  proper 
distance ;  and  I  managed  to  cool  the  husband's  assumed 
wr.ith  when  I  came  to  tell  him  of  the  charges  against  her, 
he  asseverating  her  virtue  and  innocence  in  terms  that  sa- 
vored of  Milesian  profanity. 

"  Mr.  Brady,"  said  I,  "  I  am  glad  to  see  a  man  so  brave 
a  champion  of  his  wife ;  but  you  are  only  making  matters 
worse.  She  don't  deny  the  charges ;  the  property  is  un- 
der attachment,  and  the  officer  is  at  hand,  and  she  will  be 
arrested  in  less  than  five  minutes  "  (taking  out  my  watch 
to  look  at  the  time),  "  unless  you  cool  down  and  come  to 
terms.  YOU,  too,  know  all  about  the  business,  and  would 
probably  prefer  to  escape  arrest  also  —  wouldn't  you?" 

He  looked  at  me  for  an  instant,  then  at  his  wife,  and 
said,  — 

"  Well,  I  suppose  we'll  have  to  give  in  for  now;  but 
I'll  carry  the  matter  under  protest,  up  to  the  United  States 
Supreme  Court  before  I'll  be  trampled  on." 

This  boast  seemed  to  relieve  him,  and  we  all  left  the 
store  and  went  to  my  friend's,  the  detective's,  office  on 
Tremont  Street,  where  the  preliminaries  of  a  settlement 
were  entered  into.  The  watch  we  wanted  back  at  any 
rate  ;  the  rest  of  the  jewelry  was  scattered  here  and  there, 
only  that  Mrs.  Seymour  had  preserved  a  nice  string  of 
pearls,  worth  some  three  hundred  dollars.  There  was  not 
much  "  higgling"  over  the  estimate  of  value  of  the  vari- 
ous articles,  and  the  two  thousand  in  money,  of  course, 
went  in  at  its  value.  In  all,  the  bill  footed  up  about  thir- 
ty-six hundred  and  fifty  dollars,  besides  five  hundred  — 
(which  was  too  little)  —  for  the  expenses  we  had  been  at. 
Suffice  it  that  those  building  lots  in  Now  York  changed 
hands  soon  after,  "  in  due  legal  form,"  and  that  a  thousand 
dollars  in  money  besides  left  Brady's  pocket,  and  found 
its  way  where  it  could  pay  "  expenses,"  etc.  The  building 


BOSTON'S  SUPERSTITIONS.  321 

• 

lots  have  sold  since  for  far  more  than  Brady's  estimate  of 
"  fifty  thousand  dollars  in  ten  years."  The  old  gentleman 
and  his  wife  Mary  were  delighted  with  my  success  :  of 
course  Mr.  Hurlbut  delivered  up  the  watch  for  the  price 
he  paid  for  it,  which  it  was  proper  he  should  ask,  inas- 
much too,  as  Brady  had  given  us  the  money,  or  its  equiva- 
lent for  it,  and  more  too,  and  Mrs.  Mary  said  she  should 
carry  it  till  her  dying  day,  "  to  ward  off  mediums  and  sor- 
cerers, as  the  Puritans  nailed  horse-shoes  to  door-posts 
as  protection  against  witches  "  ;  and  I  venture  she's  faith- 
fully wearing  it  now  for  that  purpose,  and  as  a  souvenir 
of  the  old  gentleman,  her  good  husband,  who  is  now  dead. 
I  was  so  much  pleased  with  the  cunning  and  skilful 
address  of  Mrs.  Seymour,  that  I  cultivated  her  acquaint- 
ance, and  by  "  close  study  "  managed  to  learn  a  good  deal 
of  her  art,  and  came  to  a  knowledge  of  the  great  extent 
to  which  mediums  are  consulted  by  people  of  the  first 
classes  ;  and  was  astonished  to  find  how  readily  they  fall, 
through  the  superstitious  element  in  their  composition, 
victims  to  the  sorcerer's  arts.  It  would  require  volumes 
to  cite  the  instances  which  occur  yearly  in  New  York  city 
alone.  Boston  is  not  a  whit  behind  in  this,  notwithstanding 
she  boasts  herself  the  Athens  of  America ;  but,  perhaps, 
she  so  boasts  because  she  worships  so  many  different  idols 
—  has  as  many  gods  as  the  Greek  mythology  embraced. 
In  proportion  to  her  population  her  dupes  of  superstition 
are  more  numerous  than  those  of  New  York. 
19 


THE  DISHONEST  CLERK,  AND  THE 
FATAL  SLIP  OF  PAPER. 


IK  AX  UGLT  MOOD  WITH  MYSELF  —  A  VISIT  FROM  A  CINCINW  ATIAW  —  A  LOSS 
DETAILED  -  THE  FATE  OF  A  BANKING-HOUSE  RESTING  OS  "COLLATER- 
ALS "  STOLEN,  WHICH  MUST  BE  RECOVERED  —A  LAWYER  FIGURES  IN  THE 
MATTER  AND  IS  BAFFLED  —  THE  THIEVES  SPECULATING  FOR  A  SETTLE- 
MENT -  THE  SCHEME  LAID  FOR  THEIR  DETECTION  -  A  BUSINESS  VISIT  TO 
THE  BANKING-HOUSE  —  THE  CHIEF  CLERK  SENT  TO  CHICAGO  ON  BUSI- 
NESS -  A  SEARCH  REVEALING  LOVE  LETTERS,  AND  A  LOVELY  LITERARY 
LADY  -  ON  TRACK  OF  MYSTERIOUS  "  PAPERS  "  —  THE  FATAL  SLIP  OF 
PAPER  -  THE  WAY  THE  STOLEN  BONDS  WERE  RECOVERED  -  THE  CHIEF 
CLERK,  AND  HOW  HE  WAS  "ENLIGHTENED"  -  A  NOVEL  AND  QUIET 
ARREST  IN  A  CARRIAGE  —  THE  CLERK*8  CONFEDERATE  CAUGHT  —  THE 
PROPERTY  RESTORED  —  TUB  SCAMPS  DECAMP  -  THE  INNOCENT  LITERARY 
LADY'S  EYES  OPENED. 


I  WAS  pitting  in  my  office  one  day,  meditating  over  a  case 
I  had  had  in  hand  to  work  up,  for  some  four  months,  off  and 
on.  An  hour  before  one  of  the  parties  interested  in  the 
matter,  and  who  had  furnished  considerable  money  to 
press  the  investigation  of  the  affair  had  left  my  office  in  a 
state  of  dissatisfaction,  evident  enough  to  me,  although  his 
interest  compelled  him  to  express  in  words  his  pleasure  at 
the  course  I  had  taken,  and  his  hope  that  my  theory  of  the 
case  would  soon  be  worked  into  practical  demonstration. 
But  I  fancied,  nevertheless,  that  he  had  secretely  resolved 
to  abandon  the  matter,  or  to  abandon  me,  and  procure  some 
one  else  to  undertake  the  job  ;  and  I  was  conjuring  in  my 
mind  who  this  might  be,  whom  he  would  secure  to  aid  him  ; 
and  resolving  myself  into  a  happy  state  of  mind  that  this 
point,  namely,  that  he  could  find  nobody  who  could  or 

322 


IN  AN  UGLY  MOOD.  323 

would  for  the  like  slight  encouragement  I  had  had,  under- 
take the  affair,  and  into  a  somewhat  unhappy  state  of 
mind  on  this  other  point,  namely,  that  I  had  been  induced 
to  enter  upon  the  work  upon  too  slight  amount  of  facts, 
and  accusing  myself  of  stupidity  in  so  doing,  I  had  resolved 
that  I  would  never  undertake  a  like  case,  involving  so 
much  work,  with  such  little  probability  of  success,  for 
there  are  some  things  which  may  baffle  the  oldest  detec- 
tive's skill  as  surely  as  the  simplest  peasant's  brain.  I 
was  in  an  ugly  mood  with  myself,  when  there  entered  my 
office  an  excited  looking  man,  who  accosted  me  — "  You 
are  Mr. ?" 

"  Yes,  sir." 

"  The  very  man  that  worked  up  that  case  for  Coe  and 
Phillips,  two  years  ago  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sir ;  I  suppose  I  am  the  man,"  said  I,  emphasising 
the  article  "  the ;  "  "  but  what  of  it,  what  if  I  did  ?  "  said  I,  in 
a  mood  which  I  was  conscious  was  not  very  attractive,  and 
with  a  look,  I  suppose,  not  over-enticing,  for  the  man 
"  hitched  "  unpleasantly  in  his  chair,  and  seemed  confused. 
"  What  of  it  ?  Why  do  you  ask  ?  " 

He  still  looked  disconcerted,  but  taking  from  his  pocket 
a  file  of  papers,  carefully  thumbed  them  over,  and  drew 
out  from  them  a  letter  of  introduction  to  me  from  Mr.  Coe, 
in  which  Mr.  Coe  said  that  his  friend  had  an  affair  on  hand 
in  which  he  thought  I  could  serve  him,  and  he  had  com- 
mended me  to  his  friend. 

"  Ah,  you  are  a  friend  of  Mr.  Coe  ?  Well,  I  see  this  note 
is  dated  over  a  month  ago.  Why  have  you  delayed  to 
bring  it  to  me  before?" 

"  0,  I'll  explain.  I  live  in  Cincinnati,  and  was  here  on 
business  at  the  time,  stopping  at  Mr.  Coe's.  I  told  him  my 
story,  got  this  note  from  him, .and  intended  to  see  you  in  a 
day  or  two ;  but  a  telegram  called  me  home,"  —  (or  "  tele- 
graph message,"  as  he  said,  for  this  was  before  the 
days  when  some  happy  genius  coined  the  felicitous  word 
"  telegram  "),  and  I  have  come  again  on  business,  and  so 
have  brought  the  note." 


324  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

"  Is  it  in  Cincinnati  that  I  must  work,  if  I  enter  upon  the 
matter  you  may  have  to  relate  to  me  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sir,  I  suppose  so  ;  in  fact,  yes,  of  course,  for  there 
the  robbery  was  committed." 

"  0,  a  robbery,  eh  ?  Well,  I  don't  think  you  had  better 
tell  me  of  it.  It's  too  far  away,  and  I  have  enough  to  do 
here ;  more  than  I  wish  I  had  of  the  kind  which  falls  to  my 
lot  these  days,  and  you  can  get  detectives  in  Cincinnati 
who  can  afford  to  work  for  you  cheaper  than  I  could." 

"  There  you  are  mistaken,"  said  he ;  "1  cannot  get  any 
detectives  in  Cincinnati  who  can  do  me  any  good.  I  tried 
the  best,  and  they  were  baffled,  and  so  I  had  told  Mr.  Coe 
when  he  recommended  you." 

"  I  am  greatly  obliged  to  Mr.  Coe  for  his  good  opinion, 
but  your  case  is  a  desperate  one,  if  the  best  detectives  of 
Cincinnati  have  had  it  in  hand ;  and  I  suspect  I  could  not 
do  you  the  least  good.  You'll  waste  your  money,  I  fear.'' 

The  man  looked  for  an  instant  as  if  he  were  shot ;  and 
then,  suddenly  recovering  himself,  he  exclaimed,  with  an 
energy  and  fierceness  of  purpose  which  pleased  me,  "  But, 
sir,  something  must  be  done,  and  we  must  spend  all  our 
ready  money  or  go  to  the  wall,  at  any  rate ;  things  are 
getting  complicated  in  our  business,  and  we  must  fail 
in  more  than  one  way,  if  we  do  not  succeed." 

"  You  say  '  we.'  Are  there  others  involved  besides 
yourself?  " 

"  Yes ;  my  partners,  two  of  them." 

"I  see  that  Mr.  Coe  has  not  told  me  your  business, 
merely  calling  you  his  '  friend.' " 

"  Yes,  I  suppose  he  thought  best  to  let  me  tell  you  my 
whole  story  myself;  and  I  would  like  to  do  that,  although 
you  seem  unwilling,  sir." 

I  smiled,  and  said,  "  0,  no,  sir,  not  unwilling,  for  it  is  my 
business  to  listen  to  all  such  tilings ;  but  you  found  mo  in  a 
grum  mood  when  you  came.  Have  you  never  passed  days 
in  which  you  wished  you  were  out  of  your  present  busi- 
ness, and  in  some  other  that  you  envied." 


DETAILING  \HE  CASE.  325 

"  Yes,  yes,"  said  he  excitedly  ;  and  of  late  I've  wished  so 
&.J  the  while,  for  reasons  I  shall  give  you." 

"  Well,  go  on  with  your  story,  I  am  a  good  listener." 

"  The  whole  matter  is  in  a  nutshell,"  said  he,  "  so  far  as 
the  crime  committed  is  concerned,  and  I'll  tell  you  that  first. 
We  are  bankers,  and  have  lost  out  of  our  safe  ten  thou- 
sand dollars  in  money,  and  negotiable  paper,  securities, 
collaterals,  and  the  like  for  over  thirty  thousand  more. 
We  have  obligations  maturing ;  some  have  mature^  already, 
and  we  have  been  pinched  to  meet  them,  and  the  rest  we 
cannot  meet  without  these  securities ;  "  and  then  he  went 
on  to  tell  me  when  the  loss  was  discovered,  etc. 

"Well,"  I  broke  in,  a  little  impatiently,  "  if  you  have  lost 
those  papers,  what  do  you  propose  ?  To  find  them  ?  " 

"  Yes,  to  get  them  back ;  that's  what  we  want.  The 
money  has  gone,  of  course,  —  we  don't  expect  that  or  any 
part  of  it,  —  but  we  must  have  the  papers  —  the  collaterals  ; 
and  here  I  must  tell  you,  that  about  a  week  after  our 
loss  we  received  a  note  from  a  lawyer  in  Cincinnati,  saying 
that  he  had  been  visited  by  parties  claiming  to  reside  in 
Kentucky,  asking  him  to  communicate  with  us,  and  saying 
that  they  were  ready  to  deliver  up  '  those  papers/  which 
they  knew  to  be  valuable  to  us,  upon  our  coming  to  the 
terms  which  they  left  with  him  to  communicate  to  us  orally  ; 
that  he  did  not  know  whether  the  story  was  all  a  hoax  or 
not,  but  if  we  knew  what  it  meant,  we  might  call  on  him, 
and  he  would  narrate  the  rest.  I  hurried  to  see  him  on 
receipt  of  note.  He  was  a  stranger  to  me  personally,  but 
I  knew  him  by  repute  'as  a  lawyer  of  fair  standing,  and  a 
man  of  good  social  status.  When  he  came  to  tell  me  the 
offer  which  these  parties  made,  which  was  to  deliver  up  the 
papers  through  their,  attorney  —  himself — for  fifty  per 
cent,  of  their  face  value  (for  at  this  point  I  had  only  told 
him  that  I  knew  what  the  parties  meant,  and  had  come  to 
hear  their  offer),  I  asked, '  Do  you  know  for  whom  you 
are  dealing  ?  Do  you  know  how  these  papers  came  into 
the  possession  of  the  parties  ?  ' " 


32G  KNOT#  UNTIED. 

"  No ;  I  know  nothing  of  them,  more  than  I  tell  you. 
But  explain  to  me  how  the  papers  caiue  into  their 
possession." 

"  By  robbery,"  said  I ;  "  those  parties  are  burglars  or 
worse." 

"  Robbery  !  "  he  exclaimed,  "  and  the  villains  wished  to 
make  me  a  middle-man  in  the  transaction  !  Tell  me  all 
about  it,  and  we'll  see  if'  we  can't  turn  the  game  upon 
them.  Consider  me  your  attorney  ;  it  shall  cost  you  noth- 
ing, —  tflb  scoundrels  I  "  —  and  he  brought  his  fist  down 
upon  his  table  with  a  blow  that  made  it  quiver.  "  If  I've 
got  to  that  pass,"  said  he,  "  that  scoundrels  dare  approach 
me  in  this  way,  it  is  time  I  give  myself  a  close  examination, 
and  reform,  if  need  be.  Please  to  tell  me  all  about  the 
affair." 

"I  told  him  the  facts  of  our  loss,  and  our  situation  ;  how  the 
money  and  papers  must  have  been  taken  out  of  our  safe  by 
some  one  who  had  obtained  knowledge  of  the  numbers  of 
the  permutation  lock ;  and  he  asked  at  once,  as  you  will  do, 
about  the  clerks,  my  partners,  and  so  forth,  and  said  some 
one  of  them  was  the  villain.  But  no  matter  for  this  now. 
We  laid  plans  which  failed ;  and  he  concluded  that  after 
all,  it  must  be  the  work  of  some  one  in  the  office,  but  how 
to  catch  him,  was  the  question  ;  and  I  cannot  think  that 
any  of  my  partners  or  my  clerks  is  the  man,  for  we  have 
exhausted  all  schemes  in  trying  to  fix  the  crime  on  any  of 
them,  and  failed  signally." 

"  Well,  is  that  all  you've  got  to  tell  me  ?  " 

"  No ;  I've  not  told  you  my  story  yet  but  in  part. 
When  shall  I  begin  again?" 

"  When  you  please ;  but  first  tell  me,  perhaps,  about 
your  partners,  and  your  clerks,  each  by  himself;  who 
he  is,  how  long  he  has  been  with  you,  and  what  his  age, 
his  habits,  —  all  about  him." 

So  Mr.  Redfield  —  (the  reader  understands  always  that 
assumed*  names  are  given  in  these  narratives,  where  there 
exists  a  proper  reason  for  so  doing)  —  Mr.  Redfield,  as  we 


PROFESSIONAL   PRIDE   PIQUED.  327 

call  him,  went  into  a  minute  description  of  the  men, 
each  by  himself,  and  I  confess  I  was  baffled.  I  said  to 
him  that  it  must  be  that  some  one  of  those  was  the  guilty 
party,  yet  that  nothing  he  had  told  me  would  allow  me  to 
suspect  one  of  them  for  a  moment ;  that  my  impression  of 
the  guilt  of  one  of  them  was  solely  the  result  of  the  com- 
mon-sense reflection  that  somebody  who  understood  the 
safe-lock,  with  its  numbers,  must  be  the  man  who  took  the 
money  and  papers :  that  was  all.  And  in  fact  I  suppose  it 
was,  because  the  case  at  this  point  became  so  desperate, 
or  difficult  of  solution,  that  I  undertook  it  all;  for  if  I 
could  have  hit  upon  some  expedient  which  would  seem  to 
me  likely  to  work  out  the  problem,  I  should,  in  my  state 
of  mind  at  the  time,  have  given  Mr.  Bedfield  the  advan- 
tage of  it,  for  a  small  counsel  fee  at  most,  and  declined  to 
go  on;  but  it  was  just  enough  unsolvable  at  this  point  to 
vex  me,  and  pique  my  pride.  I  did  not  wonder  that  the 
btst  detectives  in  Cincinnati  had  failed,  for  I  could  easily 
see  that  the  scoundrels  had  only  to  keep  these  papers  hid 
in  some  unsearchable  spot,  and  exercise  ordinary  care  — 
indeed  be  quite  careless  —  and  never  be  found  out,  unless 
their  greed  should  at  last  betray  them. 

It  was  evident  to  me,  from  what  Mr.  Redfield  said,  that 
the  parties  had  become  suspicious  of  the  lawyer  they  vis- 
ited, for  some  reason;  for  they  never  visited  him  again, 
and  neglected  to  answer  a  rather  ingenious  advertisement 
that  he  published  in  one  of  the  papers.  But  they  had 
again  managed  to  communicate  with  Mr.  Redfield,  and 
repeated  their  offer ;  and  had  sent  him  the  form  of  an 
advertisement  to  put  in  the  paper,  if  he  concluded  to 
accept.  But  he  delayed  beyond  the  day  they  named, 
unwilling  to  accept,  and  still  hopeful  of  detecting  the  vil- 
lains, and  getting  back  the  full  papers  for  nothing;  and 
thinking  better  of  it,  a  day  or  two  after,  he  had  pub- 
lished the  advertisement,  but  they  had  not  regarded  it; 
probably,  as  I  judged,  because  they  thought  he  had  laid 
some  plan  to  trap  them.  So  when  he  went,  "armed  to 


328  KJJOTS    UNTIED 

the  teeth,"  he  said,  out  to  a  lonely  place,  as  indicated  in 
their  letter,  about  five  miles,  to  meet  somebody,  there 
to  make  further  arrangements,  nobody  came. 

They  were  very  wary  then,  and  it  was  evident  that  they 
would,  aa  they  threatened  in  their  note,  —  for  the  writer 
represented  that  there  were  two  of  them,  —  destroy  the 
papers  unless  they  got  their  price  for  them,  and  in  a 
manner,  too,  secure  to  themselves.  They  could  "  afford," 
—  the  wretches  !  —  to  lose  the  papers,  for  they  had  made 
ten  thousand  dollars  in  money,  at  any  rate,  they  kindly 
wrote. 

I  insisted  that  this  mode  of  proceeding  on  their  part 
indicated  an  acquaintance  with  the  bankers'  business, — 
showed  that  they  knew  the  great  value  of  these  papers  to 
the  firm,  —  and  that  this  was  a  further  reason  for  suspect- 
ing some  one  in  the  office.  But  Mr.  Redfield  persisted  in 
believing  that  the  Cincinnati  detective  had  settled  that 
point  against  my  opinion.  * 

Well,  it  was  agreed  that  I  should  go  on  and  take  my 
own  way  to  work  up  the  matter,  and  Mr.  Redfield  left. 
I  followed  him  in  a  day  or  two,  with  my  first  plans 
matured,  and  with  all  such  implements,  clothes,  etc.,  for 
disguises  which  I  thought  I  might  need,  and  met  him  at  a 
place  appointed.  My  first  course  was  to  go  into  the  bank- 
ing office,  with  papers  in  hand  of  business  to  be  done  with 
the  chief,  Mr.  Redfield ;  to  be  delayed  there  with  him  talk- 
ing a  long  while  over  the  matter  of  loans  on  some  Western 
lands,  and  to  engage  his  assistance  in  raising  capital  for  a 
manufacturing  concern  to  be  established  at  Minneapolis, 
Minnesota.  His  partners  were  to  be  kept  profoundly  igno- 
rant of  my  real  character,  and  one  of  them  was  to  be  called 
into  our  conference  regarding  the  lands,  etc.,  whenever  I 
indicated.  This  was  the  plan  I  made  for  getting  a  chance 
to  slyly  study  the  clerks  and  the  younger  partner  —  for  it 
was  out  of  the  question  that  the  older  partner  could  be 
engage'd  in  the  theft. 

1  went  to  the  banking-house  as  arranged,  calUd  for  Mr. 


BEGUILING  A  PARTNER.  329 

Redfield,  gave  him  my  name  ;  "  made  his  acquaintance," 
etc.,  rather  rapidly  ;  and  while  I  was  doing  so,  cast  a  list- 
less glance  around  me,  and  chanced  to  find  the  chief  clerk's 
eyes  staring  at  me  in  a  manner  not  merely  of  ordinary 
curiosity.  There  was  a  gleam  in  them  which  I  did  not 
like,  and  in  an  instant  I  changed  our  plan  of  operations, 
and  saicl,  "  Mr.  Redfield,  can't  I  see  you  in  private  ?  "  — 
taking  an  easy-going  look  about  the  room,  and  not  neglect- 
ing to  take  in  the  clerk  in  the  sweep  of  my  eye.  He  was 
writing,  and  there  was  a  nervousness  about  the  shoulders, 
a  flush  in  the  face,  and  his  lips  seemed  much  compressed. 
"  Guilt  there,"  said  I  to  myself,  as  Mr.  Redfield  stepped 
into  the  private  room. 

The  door  was  closed  by  Mr.  R ,  who  asked,  "  Why 

do  you  change  the  programme  ?     What  have  you  seen  ?  " 

"Enough,"  said  I;  "and  now  the  question  is  how  well 
can  you  play  your  part  ?  I  know  that  a  man  in  your  office 
is  the  guilty  party." 

Mr.  Redfield  looked  a  little  astounded  at  my  rapid  oper- 
ations, and  replied,  "  Well,  you  are  to  work  up  the  case 
according  to  your  own  methods  ;  but  you  surprise  me." 

"  Well,"  said  I,  "  let  me  alone,  then ;  let's  talk  up  the 
Western  lands,  etc. ;  "  and  we  did  —  I  laughing  outright, 
immoderately  at  times,  telling  Mr.  Redfield  a  story  or  two, 
which  made  him  laugh  in  real  earnest;  and  after  we'd 
fixed  up  a  plan,  he  went  out  smiling,  asked  his  older  part- 
ner to  come  in  to  see  me,  saying,  "  He's  the  queerest  spec- 
ulator I  ever  saw;  come  in,  and  see  if  we  can  do  anything 
for  him."  And  the  man  came  in.  We  talked,  could  not 
get  near  a  bargain,  and  I  finally  left  the  bank,  saying  to 
Mr.  Redfield  that  I'd  "  write  in  a  week  or  so ;  perhaps 
they'd  think  better  of  the  offer." 

I  was  not  at  a  loss  to  see,  by  the  clerk's  countenance 
and  manner  as  I  went  out,  that  he  was  at  ease  again  — 
which  was  all  I  wanted  to  then  eifect. 

Mr.  Redfield  and  I  met  that  night  in  a  place  appointed. 
He  told  me  they'd  had  much  fun  in  the  office  over  the 

13* 


330  KNOTS    UNTIED. 

"  queer  speculator,"  and  that  his  partner  had  no  suspicion 
of  my  real  business  at  all ;  and  we  entered  into  a  serious 
conversation.  I  told  him  tljat  the  chief  clerk  was  the 
guilty  man  in  my  opinion,  and  that  I  should  proceed  upon 
that  theory,  and  pursue  it  till  forced  to  give  up  in  that 
direction,  and  then  drop  the  matter ;  that  there  w^s  no  use 
of  attempting  anything  without  the  clerk  in  the  programme. 

We  talked  over  the  matter,  and  I  learned  where  the 
clerk  kept  his  private  rooms  —  for  he  boarded  at  a  hotel, 
and  roomed  in  a  block  of  business  offices  and  dormitories ; 
and  what  at  first  surprised  me  was  to  learn  that  he  had 
left  much  better  rooms  within  a  month  or  so,  since  the 
robbery,  and  taken  up  with  poorer  ones.  Mr.  Redfield 
could  give  me  np  information  as  to  his  habits,  save  what 
he  judged  and  what  the  detectives  had  reported — all  good. 
But  somehow  I  suspected  that  there  must  be  a  woman 
involved  in  some  way — a  mistress,  perhaps,  whose  extrav- 
agance had  led  astray  the  clerk,  whom  we  will  call  Childs, 
to  need  more  money  than  he  could  legitimately  make. 
So  I  told  Mr.  Redfield  that  we  must  search  Childs's  room 
and  private  papers,  if  he  had  any ;  and  it  was  arranged 
that  Childs  should  be  sent  on  business  to  Chicago  for  two 
or  three  days.  Mr.  Redfield  had  no  difficulty  in  arranging 
that,  and  Childs  departed,  highly  honored  with  his  chief's 
confidence. 

We  managed  without  much  trouble  to  get  into  Childs's 
room,  where  everything  but  his  trunks  were  first  searched, 
—  not  excepting  the  minutest  scraps  of  letters  in  a  waste- 
basket,  —  where  I  found  evidences  of  female  correspon- 
dence. Further  search  among  some  books,  on  a  little 
shelf  at  the  top  of  a  clothes-press  or  "closet,"  revealed  some 
more  in  the  same  handwriting — sweet  little  billets-doux, 
longer  letters,  etc.,  —  all  passionate,  very,  —  sometimes 
complaining,  etc. 

None  of  these  had  envelopes,  and  I  therefore  judged  that 
thi\v  \\i-n-  written  in  the  city,  and  sent  through  the  post 
office,  and  that  Childs  probably  always,  at  once,  destroyed 


A   LITERARY  GIRL.  331 

the  envelopes.  I  should  say  that  none,  except  some  evi- 
dently old  ones,  had  envelopes.  There  was  no  date  or 
place,  save  "  My  little  room,"  —  "  Our  dear  boudoir,"  or 
something  like  that, —  and  sometimes  a  further  day, — 
"  Thursday  Morning,"  —  "  Monday  Evening."  It  was  evi- 
dent to  me  that  the  charmer  lived  in  the  city  somewhere ; 
and  I  had  already  made  up  my  mind  that  she  must  be 
tracked  out  as  the  first  step,  when,  turning  over  a  letter 
from  this  female,  the  rich,  passionate,  burning  language  of 
which,  well-expresssd,  had  led  me  on,  I  came  to  the  con- 
clusion, and  found  —  "I  have  not  received  pay  yet  for  that 

article.  R must  not  think  that  he  can  neglect  me  as 

he  did  Hattie  ;  I  will  be  paid  for  what  I  write  — something, 
at  least.  I  guess  we  shall  have  to  visit  him  together ;  " 
and  with  very  affectionate  words  of  parting,  the  letter 
closed.  And  then  came  a  P.  S.  "  Every  day  I  grow 
more  uneasy  about  those  papers.  I  wish  you  would  take 
them  away.  What  if  I  should  suddenly  die,  and  they 
should  be  found  with  me  ?  You  said  they  were  very  valu- 
able—  and  you  may  lose  them.  I  should  regret  that. 
Come  to-night,  dearest." 

Ah,  ha !  here  was  a  literary  lady,  —  a  contributor  to  the 
story  or  other  papers,  —  wrote  a  good  hand,  and  in  good 
style  of  composition ;  was  evidently  on  loving  terms  with 
Childs.  I  was  in  doubt  whether  mistress  or  only  ardent 
lover;  could  not  tell  that  till  I  should  see  her,  if  then. 
She  must  be  seen.  How  to  find  her?  Easy  enough,  per- 
haps, but  maybe  not.  We  left  Mr.  Childs's  room  in  good 
order,  and  separated  for  the  night,  I  giving  Mr.  Redfield 
no  more  insight  into  the  modes  I  intended  to  pursue  next 
day  than  necessary. 

The  next  morning  I  started  for  the  newspaper  offices 
with  a  portion  of  one  of  the  letters  I  had  found,  made  a 
proper  story  of  wishing  to  engage  the  literary  services  of 
the  writer  of  the  letter  if  I  could  find  her,  but  that  I 
knew  not  her  name  ;  as  her  friend,  who  had  given  me  the 
portion  of  the  letter  to  show  her  style,  and  had  not  yet 


332  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

given  mo  her  name,  had  been  called  off  to  New  York  by 
telegraph,  I  found,  —  wanted  to  find  her  that  day. 

At  the  first  office  I  entered  nobody  could  tell  mo  any- 
thing. But  on  entering  the  second  one,  and  finding  the 
associate  editor,  and  asking  him  if  he  recognized  that  writ- 
ing, he  looked  up  and  smiled,  as  if  he  thought  I  had  a  joke 
for  him. 

"  I  guess  I  do,"  said  he. 

"  Well,"  said  I,  "  there's  a  dispute  about  it." 

"  Let's  see,"  said  he,  in  a  hasty,  nervous  way,  snatching 
it  from  my  hand,  and  glancing  at  it  again.  "  No  dispute 

about  it;  that's  our "  (using  her  nom  de  plume, 

which  I  won't  repeat,  as  she  is  probably  living,  and  many 
old  friends  might  recognize  her  in  this  tale,  and  learn  more 
than  they  are  entitled  to  know). 

"  Where  can  I  find  her  ?  "  said  I ;  "  I  want  to  see  her 
about  some  writing." 

"All  right,"  said  he,  making  some  marks  on  a  paper, 
which  I  found  to  be  name  of  street  and  number-  of  house. 
"  There's  where  she  was  the  last  I  knew  of  her,  two  months 
ago.  I  think  you  can  find  her  through  that." 

"Would  you  give  me  a  note  to  her,  as  I  am  a  stranger?" 

"  Why  yes,  such  as  I  could.  I  don't  know  your  name ; 
but  stay  —  no,"  said  he  ;  "  give  me  that  paper  again ; " 
and  taking  it,  he  put  his  initials  to  it,  and  the  name  of 
office  and  date  of  day.  "  That  will  be  enough  —  good  as  a 
more  formal  note,"  said  he ;  and  he  caught  up  his  pen,  and 
proceeded  as  if  something  was  on  his  mind.  "  You  must 
excuse  me,  sir ;  I  have  a  great  deal  to  do  to-day.  Can  I 
;t  — ist  you  any  further  now?" 

I  replied,  "  No ;  I  thank  you  for  your  courtesy ;  "  and 
bowed  myself  out.  1  was  as  confident  now  that  I  should 
trap  Childs  as  if  the  thing  was  done ;  but  there  were  two 
of  them,  and  they  must  both  be  caught.  Childs  could  not 
be  carrying  on  this  correspondence  with  the  lawyer  and 
writing  to  Mr.  Redfield,  that  was  patent.  I  would  watch 
Childs  that  night,  and  see  if  he  went  to  the  lady's  resi- 


A  MEAN  BOAST.  333 

dence.  He  did  go,  and  as  they  took  a  walk  out,  I  saw  her, 
—  got  a  good  view  of  her  face,  and  made  up  my  mind  that 
she  was  innocent  of  any  intelligent  complicity  in  the  mat- 
ter. I  liked  her  looks  very  much.  She  was  one  of  those 
impulsive,  earnest  creatures,  who,  when  they  love,  love 
desperately,  but  who  know  not  how  to  hate,  as  some 
women  know,  who  also  know  how  to  love  intensely,  —  a 
miserable  class  of  women,  in  my  opinion,  although  novel- 
ists love  to  paint  them,  and  these  women  themselves  are 
ever  boastful  of  their  twofold  power  of  love  and  hate,  — 
a  mean  boast  of  a  mean  character  of  soul.  I  saw  that 
she  loved  Childs,  and  I  was  sure  she  respected  him,  and 
what  I  should  do  1  knew  not  exactly  ;  but  following  them 
in  their  walk  and  back,  and  waiting  till  he  left  her,  and 
went  on  his  way  to  his  office,  had  given  me  much  time  to 
think,  and  I  had  resolved  upon  a  course  which  I  thought 
the  next  day  would  see  consummated ;  when,  returning  to 
my  quarters,  I  found  a  note  from  Mr.  Redfield,  begging  me 
to  meet  him  at  a  certain  place  that  night, — by  no  means  to 
sleep  without  seeing  him.  He  would  be  there  at  such  an 
hour,  and  at  such  other  hours  till  he  met  me.  Something 
important  had  happened. 

I  sought  Mr.' Redfield  as  requested;  found  that  he  had 
that  afternoon  received  a  note  from  the  parties,  again 
requesting  him  to  meet  them,  or  one  of  them,  next  day,  at  a 
place  near  Covington,  Kentucky,  and  to  come  prepared  to 
"  take  up  the  papers,  according  to  our  offer,"  in  the  after- 
noon, at  six  of  the  next  day.  Mr.  R was  greatly  excit- 
ed; said  that  this  was  their  "last  call,"  as  they  expressed 
it ;  that  the  papers  would  then  be  destroyed ;  "  and  that 
will  be  the  last  of  our  house,"  he  tremblingly  muttered. 

I  had  been  looking  the  letter  over  carefully  meanwhile, 
not  at  all  disturbed,  for  I  felt  that  Childs  would  not  long 
be  out  of  our  hands,  when  I  chanced  to  reflect  that  the 
paper  on  which  it  was  written  was  like  some  of  that  on 
which  the  lady's  letters  to  Childs  were  written ;  and  I  said 
to  myself,  probably  he  has  supplied  himself  and  her  some 


334  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

time  with  the  same  kind  of  paper ;  but  this  is  not  his  or 
her  handwriting.  "  No, -she's  innocent,"  I  muttered  to  my- 
self; "  I  am  satisfied  of  that;"  but  the  paper  was  like,  and 
that,  though  a  slight  thing,  helped  to  steady  mo  in  my 
opinion  of  his  guilt.  I  handed  the  letter  to  Mr.  Redfield 
to  replace,  —  he  having  taken  it  from  the  envelope  before 
giving  it  to  me,  — ^  when,  placing  it  back,  a  small  slip  fell 
out  of  the  envelope  as  he  turned  it  upside  down. 

"What's  this?"  said  I,  as  I  picked  it  up;  "we  must  scan 
everything." 

It  was  a  narrow  strip,  and  on  it  was  written,  "My  dear- 
est A ."  (It  was  the  lady's  name,  as  it  proved.)  I  was 

astounded,  for  I  had  seen  Childs's  writing,  and  this  was 
like  it  for  all  the  world.  It  was  his,  indeed  —  so  Mr.  Red- 
field  decided.  But  how  came  it  in  there  ?  When  Mr.  Red- 
field  opened  his  letter  it  had  not  fallen  out.  He  had  cut 
the  end  of  the  envelope.  I  took  the  envelope,  and  round- 
ing it  out,  peered  in,  and  satisfied  myself,  from  its  shape, 
that  the  writer  had  done  what  I  frequently  do,  with  the 
old-fashioned  envelopes  especially, — put  in  a  piece  of  paper 
to  keep  the  gluten  from  sticking  to  the  letter,  as  it  will, 
when  wet  and  sealed,  in  many  kinds  of  envelopes.  In 
handling  the  envelope,  and  opening  it  a  little  to  put  back 
the  qpntents,  this  paper,  if  stuck  at  all,  had  "  chipped  off." 
But  how  came  the  address  there  in  Childs's  hand  ?  Either 
the  letter  had  been  written  in  a  poorly-lighted  place,  or  a 
careless  or  drunken  confederate  had  slipped  the  strip  we 
found  into  the  letter,  without  noting  both  sides.  But 
really  how  it  came  there  I  did  not  care  —  it  was  there. 

"  Mr.  Redfield,"  said  I,  "  that  clerk's  game  is  up.  Give 
me  the  letter ;  ask  no  questions,  but  to-morrow  morning, 
as  soon  as  he  comes  in,  make  occasion  to  send  him  off  on 
business  which  shall  detain  him  till  into  the  afternoon,  if 
you  can ;  or  provide  business  ibr  him  here  that  shall  occu- 
py him  beyond  noon-time.  Better  send  him  out  of  town. 
I  want  to  get  over  to-morrow  noon." 

Mr.  Redfield  said  that  fortunately  he  could  send  him 


A  QUESTIONABLE  STRATAGEM.  335 

out  of  town  to  see  parties  about  a  mortgage,  and  he  would 
send  somebody  along  with  him,  —  his  servant,  —  and  tell 
him  to  be  sure  to  not  get  in  before  two  or  three.  The 
boy  will  do  what  I  say,  and  ask  no  questions  and  tell  no 
tales.  My  word  is  law  with  him,  and  Childs  will  have  to 
walk  .back  twelve  miles,  or  hire  somebody  to  bring  him 
in,  for  the  boy  won't  come  till  I  tell  him  to." 

Next  morning  I  was  up  betimes.  Childs  was  out  early 
before  going  to  the  office,  taking  a  morning  walk  with 
his  lady.  He  carried  no  bundle  away  from  there,  and  I 
tracked  him  to  the  office.  I  felt  safe  now :  and  now  for 
the  final  work,  I  thought,  for  I  was  sure  that  Redfield 
would  pack  off  Childs  duly,  and  the  coast  would  be  clear. 
I  had  gotten  possession  of  the  lady's  name  meanwhile, 
and  proceeded  to  her  boarding-place,  called  for  her,  intro- 
duced myself,  talked  with  her  about  literary  matters  in 
my  own  way,  not  at  great  length,  and  was  delighted  with 
the  innocence  of  the  girl.  I  had  formed  no  fixed  mode  of 
procedure  when  I  entered  the  house,  but  I  was  resolved 
to  wait  till  I  saw  her,  and  the  longer  I  talked  with  her  the 
more  convinced  was  I  that  she  was  innocent  and  artless,  and 
that  a  pretty  direct  way  was  the  best  to  approach  her  by. 

So  I  said,  "  "Well,  you'll  pardon  me,  Miss ,  but  Mr. 

Childs  told  me  I  would  be  pleased  to  chat  with  you,  and  I 
have  —  " 

"  What !  you  know  Mr.  Childs  ?  He's  always  saying 
flattering  things  of  me." 

"  0,"  is  he  ?  Well,  perhaps  he  didn't  say  anything 
especial  to  me,  then  ;  but  I  was  going  to  say  that  I  called 
on  business.  He's  going  out  of  town  to-day,  and  he  had 
to  start  earlier  than  he  expected ;  just  gone ;  wasn't  going 
till  afternoon  —  " 

"  Yes,  he  told  me  he  was  going  over  to  Covington  in 
the  afternoon,"  she  broke  in. 

"  Yes,"  said  I,  "  and  he  said  that  he  wanted  you  to  give 
me  those  papers ;  said  you'd  understand  what  he  meant. 
I  am  to  meet  him,  and  this,  he  said,  would  be  enough 


336  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

word  for  you  "  (handing  her  the  slip  of  paper, '  My  dearest 

A .')  He  was  in  haste."  She  took  it,  blushed,  and  said, 

"  Yes,  this  is  his  writing.  He  writes  nicely  —  doesn't 
he  ?  Excuse  me,  I  will  be  gone  but  a  moment,"  and  she 
hied  up  stairs  to  her  room,  as  unsuspecting  as  a  dove.  I 
was  surprised  at  the  success  of  my  simple  stratagem,  but 
I  had  others  behind  it,  which  would  have  worked  had  that 
failed.  She  came  down  stairs,  bringing  a  nicely  sealed 
package. 

"  That  is  what  he  wants,"  said  she.  "  You  will  be 
careful  of  it,  of  course,  or  he  would  not  have  sent  you. 
You  are  his  friend  —  a  mysterious  man  I've  heard  him 
speak  of;  and  I  must  tell  you,"  she  said,  laughing  heartily, 
"  that  I've  told  him  1  did  not  like  that  friend  very  well, 
keeping  him  away  from  me  so  much." 

"  O,"  said  I,  "  no  harm  I  hope.  Men  have  their  business 
arrangements  together,  —  their  speculations,  —  and  can't 
always  be  as  gallant  as  they  would." 

"  0, 1  know  it,"  said  she.  "  I  don't  complain.  I  was 
only  joking  him." 

It  was  evident  to  me  that  that  woman  had  not  the  re- 
motest thought  of  Childs's  being  aught  than  as  noble  and 
pure  as  she  ;  and  as  I  took  the  package,  folded  it  in  a  news- 
paper, and  left  the  house,  I  felt  for  her  to  the  bottom  of 
my  heart,  so  much  so,  that  I  at  first  resolved  to  not  tell 
Redfield  how  I  had  obtained  the  package,  but  to  give 
him  up  the  papers,  tell  him  to  dismiss  the  clerk,  get  my 
pay,  and  leave  ;  for  I  thought  it  would  break  her  heart  to 
find  Childs  so  great  a  scoundrel ;  that  perhaps  he,  finding 
himself  foiled,  would  never  be  guilty  of  a  crime  again ; 
would  seek  some  other  spot,  reform,  and  marry  her,  and 
make  her  ever  happy. 

These  thoughts  I  revolved  in  my  mind  as  I  passed  on 
to  my  lodgings,  and  when  I  got  there  I  opened  the  pack- 
age. Lo  !  all  the  papers,  so  far  as  I  could  judge,  and 
something  more,  —  a  letter  or  two,  in  a  scrawly  hand,  with 
some  rude  drawings  of  roads,  a  sort  of  diagram,  on  a 


A  FAITHFUL  SERVANT.  337 

/ 

page  of  one  of  them.  I  deciphered  the  letters,  and  found 
that  Child^'s  correspondent  spoke,  in  one  of  them,  of  that 

"  little  fool  of  yours,"  evidently  meaning  Miss  A ;  and 

said  something  else,  which  I  knew  he  would  never  have 
said  had  not  Childs  given  him  occasion.  In  short,  I  saw 
that  Childs's  respect  for  her  was  feigned;  that  he  was 
only  fooling  her,  and  my  mind  changed  towards  him ;  be- 
sides, there  was  his  confederate,  and  we  must  have  them 
both.  I  hurriedly  repacked  the  papers,  proceeded  to  the 
bank,  called  Mr.  Redn'eld  into  the  private  room,  and  showed 
him  what  I  had  got.  He  was  confounded,  of  course.  I 
said,  "  What  shall  we  do  with  them  ?  " 

"  Seal  them,  and  put  them  in  the  safe  for  to-day.  I  want 
to  arrest  that  villain  Childs  now,"  said  he,  "  for  I  understand 
how  you've  come  by  these.  We've  no  time  to  lose." 

We  went  out  after  sealing  the  papers,  and  leaving  them 
in  the  safe,  properly  marked  with  my  name  —  a  deposit. 
As  soon  as  wo  got  out  of  the  office  we  made  our  plan.  It 
was  to  take  an  officer,  ride  out  on  the  road  on  which 
Childs  had  gone,  and  wait  for  his  return.  But  this  would 
take  too  long.  No,  we'd  ride  right  to  the  place  he  had 
gone  to,  all  of  us.  We  found  the  officer,  took  a  two-horse 
carriage,  and  were  on  our  way  very  shortly  —  drove  to 
where  Childs  was. 

11  How  do  you  do,  Mr.  Redn'eld  ?  "  said  Childs,  surprised 
to  see  him.  "  Couldn't  you  trust  me  to  do  the  business? 
And  so  you've  come  out  ?  Ha  !  ha !  " 

"  No,"  said  Mr.  Redn'eld ;  "  some  friends  of  mine  wanted 
to  take  a  ride,  arid  I  thought  I  might  as  well  ride  this  way 
as  any.  Getting  on  well  with  the  business?" 

"  Yes,"  said  h^|  "  all  finished ;  but  I  couldn't  find  that 
boy  of  yours.  He's  gone  off  somewhere,  and  there's  a 
part  of  the  harness  gone.  Gone  to  get  it  mended,  I  sus- 
pect, for  coming  out  here  he  said  it  was  weak  in  places." 

I  gave  Mr.  R — • —  a  wink,  and  said,  quietly,  "  That  boy 
would  make  a  good  operator  —  wouldn't  he  ?  " 

"  He'll  do  his  duty,"  said  he. 
20 


338  KNOTS    UNTIED. 

"  Well,  he  won't  be  back  jet,"  said  Mr.  Redficld  to  Mi . 
Childs.  "  Get  in  here,  and  we'll  all  take  a  short  ride.  Mr. 
Wilson,''  said  Mr.  Redfield,  "  you  proposed  to  ride  on  the 
front  scat  when  we  returned  ;  perhaps  you'd  like  to  now?" 

•   Yes,  I  would,"  said  I. 

"  Well,  please  get  out,  and  let  Mr.  Childs  take  your 
place.  Mr.  Childs,  these  are  Mr.  Wilson  and  Mr.  French, 
friends  of  mine,  looking  about  Cincinnati  for  speculation." 

I  got  out,  Childs  took  my  seat  in  ba'ck,  under  the  car- 
riage top  —  a  sort  of  half  buggy  and  half  coach.  The  offi- 
cer was  considerably  disguised,  (because  he  thought  he 
knew  Childs,  and  that  the  latter  knew  him),  with  a  pair  of 
blue  shaded  glasses  and  false  grayish  whiskers  and  hair. 

We  chatted  on  together,  rode  off  a  mile  or  two,  when 
Mr.  Redfield  said  he  guessed  we'd  return,  and  leave  word 
at  that  place  for  the  boy  to  come  as  soon  as  he  got  his 
harness  mended.  "  And  you  can  ride  back  with  us,  Childs,'' 
said  Mr.  R . 

Childs  expressed  his  pleasure  to  do  so.  We  returned 
to  the  place,  left  the  boy.  and  proceeded  on  a  mile  or  two, 
telling  stories,  looking  at  the  land,  etc.,  when  Mr.  Redfield 
gave  me  a  touch  with  his  elbow,  and  looked  into  my  eyes, 
as  much  as  to  ask,  "  Shall  we  not  arrest  him  now?  "  I 
gave  the  proper  sign,  and  Mr.  Redfield,  stopping  the 
horses,  turned  deliberately  around,  and  said,  "  Mr.  French 
is  an  officer  of  the  law,  Mr.  Childs,  arid  would  like  to  have 
you  give  yourself  up  without  any  fuss  about  it — wouldn't 
you.  Mr.  French  ?  Do  your  duty." 

"  Yes,  Mr.  Childs,  I  am  sorry  to  disturb  the  pleasure  of 
such  a  ride  as  we've  had,  but  it  is  my  duty  to  arrest  you." 

Childs  was  overcome  with  surprise,  and  said,  "  Yes,  he 
•would  give  himself  up,  but  he  didn't  know  what  for  — 
anything  to  oblige  Mr.  Redfield,"  and  he  gave  himself  up, 
and  the  officer  thought  best  to  handcuff  him,  at  which 
Childs  turned  very  pale,  with  mingled  anger  and  fright. 

"  Now,  Childs,"  said  Redfield,  "  since  you  are  secure, 
and  the  papers  are  all  back  in  the  safe,  and  your  lady, 


A  DEPARTURE.  339 

Miss  A "  (for  Redfield  knew  I  must  have  gotten  the 

papers  from  her  in  some  way),  "lias  turned  upon  you, 
you've -nothing  to  do  but  make  a  clean  breast  of  it.  We 
want  yonr  confederate,  and  you  must  help  us  to  take  him, 
or  suffer  alone.  If  you  wish  to  escape,  you  must  turn 
state's  evidence  —  that's  all.  He  probably  has  put  you 
up  to  crime.  You  are  not  too  old  to  reform,  and  may  be 
allowed  to  go,  and  suffer  nothing  but  the  penalty  of  dis- 
missal from  our  office ;  but  you'll  have  to  return  the 
money  you  took,  for  I  find  that  you  are  regarded  worth 
considerable  property,  and  I  presume  your  confederate  is." 

Childa  was  so  utterly  taken  aback  that  he  had  not  a  par- 
ticle of  courage  or  address  left.  He  consented  to  every- 
thing we  demanded,  and  said  he  would  write  to  his  friend 
whom  he  was  to  meet  at  Covington  that  night,  but  for 
some  reason  he  could  not  come,  and  ask  him  to  come  over 
at  night  or  next  day  to  Cincinnati.  When  we  got  into 
the  city,  Childs  was  taken  to  a  private  room  by  the  officer, 
who  had  taken  off  his  manacles,  and  then  manacled  him 
again  after  writing  the  note,  and  telling  us  where  to  find 
his  messenger. 

The  man  came  over,  and  was  under  arrest  before  he 
had  time  to  think,  and  was  taken  to  another  place,  and 
told  that  Childs  had  turned  state's  evidence. 

"  I  always  thought  Childs  was  shaky,"  said  the  fellow, 
evidently  not  quite  so  subdued  as  he  might  be  ;  but  we 
threatened  him  with  the  extreme  ends  of  the  law,  and  he 
agreed  to  get  money,  and  see  that  the  bankers  were  paid 
back  all  that  had  been  taken  if  Childs  would  do  his  part, 
and  to  clear  out  "  down  the  river  "  (meaning  to  N.  0.),  and 
leave  Cincinnati  together.  It  appeared  that  he  had  done 
the  work  of  the  robbery,  Childs  having  provided  him 
with  a  key,  of  which  he  had  procured  a  counterfeit,  and 
having  told  him  of  the  changes  of  the  lock,  and  selected  a 
time  when  there  was  a  good  amount  of  money  in  the  safe. 
He  said  he  could  "  work  "  better  alone  than  with  Childs. 

I  needn't  lengthen  out  the  story,  except  to  say  that  Mr. 


340  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

Redfield  got  back  all  the  money  too,  and  enough  besides 
to  pay  him  and  me  for  all  our  trouble ;  that  Childs  and  hia 
friend  left  for  parts  unknown,  for  Mr.  Redfield  said  it.  would 
hurt  his  bank,  shake  faith  in  it  so  much,  to  prosecute  the 
rascals,  and  expose  the  affair,  or  it  would  gratify  him  other- 
Aviso  to  punish  them:  on  the  whole  he  would  let  them  go. 

I  took  care  that  Childs  had  no  opportunity  to  see  Miss 

A before  his  departure,  or  even  to  write  her,  I  think  : 

and  as  I  spent  two  or  three  days  more  in  Cincinnati,  I 
thought,  on  reflection,  she  ought  to  know  the  facts,  and  in 
a  delicate  way  got  opportunity  to  disclose  them  to  her, 
for  which  the  innocent,  sensible  lady  expressed  her  grati- 
tude in  tears.  She  felt  that  she  had  escaped  a  villain's 
clutches ;  confessed  her  ardent  love  for  him,  but  told  me 
that  sometimes  she  felt  as  if  there  was  something  bad  in 
his  nature ;  that  he  had  given  her  much  pain  from  time  to 
time ;  and  though  they  were  engaged,  she  sometimes  had 
thought  he  did  not  intend  to  marry  ;  and  now  she  could  see 
that  he  had,  at  times,  taken  advantage  of  her  love  to  re- 
quire her  to  do  things  for  him  quite  disagreeable. 

"  Why,"  she  exclaimed,  "  if  I  had  known  that  package 
contained  stolen  things,  I  could  not  have  slept  in  the  room 
with  it.  He  said  they  were  private  business  papers  of 
his,  and  he  did  not  wish  to  ask  to  have  them  put  in  the 
bank  safe,  and  thought  they  would  be  more  secure  with 
me  than  at  his  rooms,  for  everybody  could  get  in  there  in 
his  absence  who  liked ;  so  I  was  glad  to  oblige  him,  of 
course." 

But  my  conversation  with  this  lady  need  not  be  detailed. 
She  was  not  informed  how  the  slip,  with  "  My  dearest 
A—  "  on  it,  came  into  my  hands.  Probably  it  did  not 
then  occur  to  her  to  ask.  If  her  eye  happens  to  light 
on  this  article,  she  will  now  come  at  last  to  know  how. 


THE  THOUSAND  DOLLAR  LESSON. 


CHARLES  PURVIS  :  TAKING  HTM  IN  CHARGE  AT  A  DISTANCE  —  HANGERS  OJT 

AT  THE  ST.  NICHOLAS  AND  OTHER  HOTEL  ENTRANCES A  COLLOQUY, 

SPICED  WITH  REMINISCENCES  OF  "  OLD  SAM  COLT,"  OP  THE  "  RE- 
VOLVER," IN  HIS  GAY  DAYS',  A  PARTY  AT  THE  "  OLD  CITY  HOTEL,"  HART- 
FORD. CONN.,  AND  OTHER  THINGS  TRINITY  COLLEGE  BOYS  —  "  GEORGB 

ELLSWORTH"  —  PURVIS  AND  HE  START  ON   A   WALK — "WHERE   CAN 

THBY    BE    GOING?" GOING  TO    8£E    ELLSWORTIl'8    "FRIEND" AN 

EXCHANGE  OF  COATS  A  SURVEY  TAKEN A  FIRST-CLASS  GAMBLING 

SALOON A    NEW    MAN     IN     THE    GAME PURVIS     DRUGGED  HIS 

"FRIENDS"    TAKE     HIM    "HOME,"    BUT    WHERE?  —  PURVIS    is    RE- 

•      TURNED    TO    HIS    HOTEL    IN    A     STATE    OF    STUPEFACTION;     IS    AROUSED; 

MISSES     A     THOUSAND     DOLLARS PLANS      LAID      TO      CATCH      HIS      LATE 

FRIENDS WILLIAMS      FOUND     BY     ACCIDENT,     AND     QUIETLY     CAGED 

THE     OLD      IRISH      WOMAN'S     APPEAL WILLIAMS     "EXPLAINS,"     AFTER 

PROPER  INDUCEMENT  —  MOST  OF  THE  MONEY  RECOVERED  —  SUPPLE- 
MENTS. 

I  HAD  just  returned  from  a  trip  to  Detroit,  and  failing 
to  find  my  chief  partner  in  town,  strolled  up  to  the  St. 
Nicholas  Hotel  one  night,  in  July,  1863,  and  while  saunter- 
ing about  there,  came  across  a  gentleman  whom  I  had,  a 
few  days  before,  remarked  in  the  cars,  on  the  Shore  Line 
Road.  He  got  on  board  at  Painesville,  Ohio,  and  by  sundry 
peculiarities  of  his  dress,  which  was  a  particle  "  flashy," 
but  still  neat  and  elegant,  he  attracted  my  attention.  I 
was  at  a  loss  where  to  place,  or  how  to  classify  him.  Some- 
times I  took  him  for  a  merchant,  then  I  thought  he  might 
be  a  lawyer,  and  again  a  young  man  of  wealth  and  leisure. 
Suffice  it,  I  allowed  myself  to  study  him  —  I  know  not  why 
—  so  much  that  I  was  not  likely  to  forget  him. 

Among  the  first  persons  I  chanced  to  come  across  that 
4ay  at  the  St.  Nicholas,  was  this  young  man,  and  curiosity 

3*1 


34  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

led  me  to  learn  from  the  bookkeeper  his  name,  which  I 
found  to  be  Charles  Purvis,  of  Louisville,  Kentucky. 

"Purvis?"  I  said  to  myself,  "Purvis?  The  name  is 
familiar,  but  where  have  I  known  anybody  bearing  it?" 
a  n<  I  so  I  cudgelled  my  brains  to  awaken  memory,  and  at 
last  called  to  mind  a  story  told  me  by  a  brother  detective, 
in  my  way,  on  a  time,  up  the  Mississippi  River,  in  which 
the  name  of  "Purvis"  figured  largely  in  a  criminal  tra sa- 
nction. "  Perhaps,"  thought  I,  "  this  is  the  chap  in  ques- 
tion," and  as  I  had  nothing  on  hand  to  do  for  a  day  or  two, 
I  thought  I  would  take  the  young  gentleman  in  my  charge 
—  at  a  distance. 

I  left  the  hotel,  determining  to  return  early  in  the  eveft- 
iug,  arid  keep  an  eye  to  the  young  man.  I  did  so,  and  I 
found  that  he  was  not  a  little  "  cheerful  "  in  his  ways  about 
the  bar,  —  treating,  quite  extensively,  apparent  strangers, 
but  evidently,  after  all,  not  much  given  to  making  acquaint- 
ances. Finally,  he  left  the  bar-room,  alone,  and  walked 
slowly  through  the  hall,  with  the  air  of  one  who  has  noth- 
ing to  do,  and  was  reflecting  how  to  amuse  himself. 

Near  the  front  entrance  of  the  hotel  stood  three  men 
chatting,  —  men  whose  characters  the  experienced  are 
never  at  a  loss  to  know  at  once ;  a  gentlemanly  looking  class, 
well  dressed,  of  affable  manners,  and  of  the  greatest  shrewd- 
ness of  address ;  men  whose  colloquial  powers  are  very 
a  at  times,  but  who  know  how  to  measure  every  word, 
and  adapt  it  to  the  precise  wants  of  the  individual  whom 
they  may  happen  to  address.  These  were  of  a  class  al- 
ways infesting  the  hotels,  especially  the  better  ones,  of 
the  city,  and  whose  business  it  is  to  "rope  in"  strangers 
into  the  various  gambling  saloons. 

I  (>on  the  approach  of  Mr.  Purvis,  two  of  these  worthies, 
1 'idding  the  other  a  cordial  adieu  fur  the  evening,  and  ad- 
dressing him  in  a  style  to  indicate  that  he  was  a  man  *>t 
unusual  importance,  withdrew  up  Broadway.  Still  tin's 
(•'•iirtliness  was  evidently  intended  to  bear  upon  Mr.  Pur- 
wh'j  was  in  hearing;  and  as  he  drew  nearer  the  distil* 


GAY   OLD  SAM   COLT.       •  343 

guished  gentleman,  the  latter  addressed  him,  in  a  mild  way, 
touching  the  weather,  — 

"  A  very  pleasant  evening,  sir." 

"  Decidedly.  You  seldom  enjoy  a  finer  one  here  in  New 
York,  I  suppose  ?  " 

"  0,  I  don't  know  about  that.  The  weather  here  is  usu- 
ally pretty  fair.  Are  you  a  stranger,  sir,  in  New  York, 
aHow  me  to  ask?" 

"  Not  a  stranger  exactly,  but  not  a  resident.  I  have 
been  here  considerably,  off  and  on  —  enough  to  know  the 
city  pretty  Avell,  I  reckon." 

"  That's  my  case  exactly,  for  the  last  few  years,  though 
I  formerly  resided  here  for  a  while.  A  pretty  stirring 
place  to  get  into,  if  one  knows  all  the  avenues  of  business 
or  pleasure,  sir." 

"  Surely,  but  I  have  never  had  occasion  to  learn  much 
of  these." 

"  Well,  I  too  have  only  a  limited  acquaintance  here,  yet 
I  always  find  my  way  around  without  much  difficulty  — 
generally  going  about  with  some  friends,  of  whom  I  have 
a  few  here,  formerly  from  my  native  State,  Connecticut." 

"  Ah,  Connecticut  ?  Do  you  know  anything  about  Hart- 
ford ?  Perhaps  you  are  from  there  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sir,  that  is  my  native  place#  and  a  pleasant  little 
city  'tis.  Great  deal  of  wealth  and  refinement  there, 
sir." 

"  Yes,  I  know  it.  I  had  a  cousin  from  Arkansas  there, 
at  Trinity  College,  some  years  ago,  and  a  gay  boy,  too,  was 
Bill  Sebastian  "  (if  I  rightly  remember  the  name  he  gave). 
"  I  visited  him  there  during  his  collegiate  course,  and  spent 
a  delightful  week.  Old  Sam  Colt  was  a  trifle  gay  —  wasn't 
he  ?  Well,  we  had  a  jolly  time  with  him  one  night,  and 
several  more  of  the  jolly  men  of  Hartford,  in  rooms  at 
the  old  City  Hotel.  You  know  where  that  is  ?  " 

"  Of  course ;  and  it  has  witnessed  many  a  festive  meet- 
ing. The  Trinity  boys  always  go  there  for  their  fun." 

"  I  am  glad  to  learn  that  you  are  from  Hartford.     I've 


544.  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

thought  I  should  visit  that  town  before  I  return.  Do  you 
intend  to  return  there  soon?  " 

"  Yes,  I  may  go  up  tomorrow,  but  I  may  remain  here  ;i 
day  or  two  more.  Should  you  be  going  up  when  I  go,  I 
should  be  pleased  to  have  your  company." 

"  Well,  stranger,  I  hope  it  will  happen  that  we  go  up 
together,  if  I  go  at  all.  And  now  let  us  exchange  car<l<. 
My  name  is  Purvis,  as  you  see,  of  Louisville,  Kentucky." 

The  lounger  fumbled  in  his  pockets  for  a  card  to  give  to 
Mr.  Purvis,  but  finding  none,  half-blu shingly  announced 
that  his  cards  were  out,  but  that  his  name  was  George 
Ellsworth." 

"Ellsworth  ?  Well,  sir,  you  rejoice  in  a  right  honorable 
name.  I've  heard  my  Uncle  Throckmorton  talk  a  great 
deal  about  one  of  the  Ellsworths  of  Connecticut." 

It  was  evident  to  me  that  "  Ellsworth  "  was  making  fast 
inroads  into  the  good  graces  of  Purvis,  and  of  the  latter's 
character  I  was  beginning  to  be  at  a  loss  ;  for  though  I  had 
from  his  name  connected  him  at  first  with  a  criminal  trans- 
action, yet  his  manner,  in  conversation  With  "  Ellsworth," 
did  not  seem  to  sustain  my  early  suspicions. 

Their  conversation  now  assumed  a  lower  tone,  as  Purvi.s 
had  drawn  nearer  up  to  Ellsworth,  the  two  acting  vi TV 
like  old  acquaintances  by  this  time  ;  so  I  managed  to  draw 
nearer  them,  rumbling  over  the  envelopes  of  some  old 
letters  I  had  taken  from  my  pocket,  and  assuming  to  be  in 
a  "  brown  study  "  over  something. 

"  Well,  isn't  this  a  little  dull,  Mr.  Purvis  ?  I've  been 
waiting  here  an  hour  or  so,  expecting  a  particular  friend 
along,  with  whom  I  was  going  out  for  a  while  to  look  about. 
But  he  has  been  obliged  to  disappoint  me,  I  suppose,"  said 
Ellsworth.  t:  ;• 

"  Yes,  it  is  a  little  dull,  as  you  say ;  a  stranger,  especially, 
is  apt  to  be  very  lonesome  in  a  big  city.  Do  you  ever 
take  wine,  Mr.  Ellsworth  ?  " 

"  Seldom,  sir,  especially  when  away  from  home ;  but  I 
don't  mind  a  glass  now  and  then." 


GETTING   ON.  345 

"  Come,  sir,  accompany  me,  if  you  will.  I  would  invite 
you  to  my  room  to  take  wine,  but  unfortunately  they're  so 
crowded  here  they've  been  obliged  to  put  me  far  up.  Sup- 
pose we  go  to  the  bar  ?  " 

"  Well,  if  you  please ;  but  you'll  pardon  me  when  I  say 
that  I  must  not  indulge  but  once  now.  The  night  is  long 
yet,  and  we  shall  have  other  occasion,  perhaps,  to  drink. 
I  know  how  generous  and  impulsive  you  Southern  gentle- 
men are." 

"  0,  surely,  I  know  Ave  are  apt  to  '  go  ahead/  like  Davy 
Crockett,  when  we  are  right,  and  when  we  are  not,  too ; 
but  come  along,  please,"  and  the  trusting  Purvis  carelessly 
locked  his  arm  in  that  of  Ellsworth,  and  they  moved  towards 
the  bar-room. 

My  first  intention  was  to  follow  them,  but  I  hesitated, 
and  waited  their  return.  They  were  gone  a  far  longer 
time  than  necessary  to  take  one  glass,  and  when  they  came 
along  down  the  hall,  rested  but  a  moment  at  the  door,  and 
stepped  out  down  Broadway  together. 

"  Ellsworth  has  his  victim  in  sure  training,"  thought  I 
to  myself.  "  Where  can  they  be  going  ?  " 

Feeling  confident  that  some  mischief  would  be  wrought 
ere  the  night  was  passed,  I  followed  on  at  proper  distance, 
and  saw  the  two  lingering  for  a  moment  before  No.  477 
Broadway.  Ellsworth  seemed  more  in  doubt  what  to  do 
than  Purvis,  or  less  decided.  By  this  time  I  had,  by  min- 
gling with  sundry  pedestrians,  managed  to  approach  near 
enough  to  Ellsworth  and  Purvis  to  hear  the  latter  say,  — 

"  Well,  if  you  think  we  won't  obtrude,  let  us  go  up  to  see 
your  friend  for  a  while." 

"  No,  we  shall  not  obtrude,"  replied  Ellsworth,  "  but  I 
was  thinking  if  we  might  not  find  some  more  agreeable 
place,"  —  but  he  turned  and  went  up  the  stairs,  followed  by 
Purvis. 

In  477,  at  that  time,  was  a  half  gambling  hell,  kept  as 
the  private  rooms  of  a  worthless  sporting  son  of  a  distin- 
guished surgeon.  I  had  never  been  in  the  place,  but  had 

14 


346  -KNOTS    UNTIED. 

heard  that  many  fast  young  men  gathered  there  to  play 
cards  for  fun,  and  that  sometimes  a  faro-bank  was  run 
there  for  "  amusement."  Fearing  that  by  some  possibility 
Ellsworth  might  notice  me  as  the  individual  having  stood 
near  him  in  the  St.  Nicholas  so  long,and  suspect  something 
if  1  went  in  alone,  and  undisguised,  I  was  resolving  what 

course  to  pursue,  when  my  friend,  Henry  W ,  a  detec< 

tive,  came  along.  Ho  was  just  my  size,  and  wore  a  blue 
>•  swallow-tailed "  coat,  while  I  had  on  a  black  frock.  I 
took  Henry  into  the  small  hall-way,  and  said,  "Business 
tip  ;  swap  coats  with  me  in  a  minute  ;  and  if  you've  a  pair 
of  false  mustaches  with  you,  let  me  have  'em,  Henry." 

"  I  haven't  mustaches,"  said  Henry ;  "  but  here's  some- 
thing as  good,"  said  he,  pulling  from  the  skirt  of  his  coat  a 
paper  containing  a  fine  long-haired  wig.  (My  hair  was 
cut  extremely  short  for  the  then  prevailing  fashion.)  The 
changing  of  coats,  and  assuming  of  the  wig,- was  but  a  mo- 
ment's work,  and  with  my  promise  to  Henry  "  to  report 
in  the  morning,"  we  parted,  and  I  mounted  to  the  sporting- 
room  in  a  trice.  Walking  in  coolly,  I  proceeded  quietly  to 
the  "  bureau,"  and  helped  myself,  as  is  the  custom  in  such 
places,  to  a  small  glass  of  wine,  and  while  drinking,  took  a 
survey. 

There  were  my  friends  Ellsworth  and  Purvis,  the  former 
evidently  instructing  the  other  about  the  ways  and  habits 
of  such  places.  This  night  the  faro-bank  was  in  operation 
in  one  room,  and  in  another  several  parties  were  playing 
at  cards. 

After  a  while  I  overheard  Ellsworth  say,  "  I  never  play 
for  money,  but  some  one  here,  I  dare  say,  will  take  a  hand 
with  you  if  you  wish  a  little  amusement,"  and  they  saun- 
t«-red  into  the  card-room,  where,  without  trouble,  parties 
were  found  to  "make  up  a  hand"  at  an  unoccupied  table 
-  Ellsworth  declining  to  play,  but  taking  a  seat  near  Pur- 
vis to  watch  the  game.  The  stakes  were  small,  but  dur- 
ing the  play  Purvis  lost  a  little  more  than  the  loose  change 
which  he  had  about  him,  and  was  forced  to  draw  a  well- 


SOMETHING   "LUCKY."  347 

filled  wallet  from  his  side  coat  pocket.  I  noticed  a  pecu- 
liar smile  on  Ellsworth's  face  as  his  eye  rested  on  that 
wallet ;  and  from  that  moment  I  felt  that  I  had  work  to 
do.  I  took  an  apparently  listless  interest  in  the  game, 
and  kept  my  eye  as  much  on  Ellsworth  as  I  could.  He 
seemed  to  be  restless.  Persons  were  coming  in  and  going 
out  of  the  other  room  especially,  and  Ellsworth's  face 
always  reverted  to  the  door  when  he  heard  new  footsteps 
or  a  new  voice.  Presently  his  face  brightened,  and  he  got 
up,  went  into  the  other  room,  took  a  glass  of  wine,  and  on 
returning,  affecting  to  just  then  discover  a  friend,  ex- 
claimed, "  Ah,  Williams!  how  do  you  do?  How  did  you 
get  here  ?  I  was  waiting  at  St.  Nicholas  for  you  for  over 
an  hour." 

"  Well,  I  was  delayed — did  not  know  where  to  look  for 
you  when  I  got  there,  and  dropped  in  here,  I  hardly  know 
how;  but,  old  fellow,  it's  all  as  well  now  —  isn't  it?" 
giving  Ellsworth  a  gentle  pat  on  the  shoulder.  All  this 
was  said  in  such  a  manner  that  Purvis  might  have  heard 
it  if  not  too  much  engaged  in  his  play ;  and  he  probably 
did  hear  it ;  and  the  two  worthies  Avent  arm  in  arm '  into 
the  card-room. 

"  Let  me  interrupt  the  play  for  a  second,  gentlemen,  if 
you  please,"  said  Ellsworth,  taking  Williams  directly  up  to 
Purvis.  "  Mr.  Purvis,  allow  me  to  introduce  to  you  my 
friend,  Mr.  Williams,  the  gentleman  we  were  waiting  so 
long  for  to-night.  Lucky —  isn't  it,  he  dropped  in  here  ?  " 

The  usual  courtesies  of  introduction  were  passed,  Purvis 
assuring  Mr.  Williams  that  he  was  very  glad  to  make  his 
acquaintance,  and  that  the  game  would  soon  be  over, 
when  he  would  be  glad  to  learn  more  of  his  "  friend  Ells- 
worth's" friend. 

But  who  was  this  "  Williams  ?  "  you  are  apt  to  inquire, 
right  here.  I  did  not  know  Ellsworth,  but  I  had  seeH 
Williams  before.  He  was  elegantly  attired,  more  so  than 
Ellsworth,  indeed,  and  nearly  as  mannerly;  though,  to  the 
practised  eye,  there  was  discernible  in  his  face  a  lower 


348  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

range  of  character  than  in  Ellsworth's.  He  had  more  low 
.Minning,  and  was  fitter  to  do  deeds  of  positive  criminality, 
lit-  belonged  to  the  higher  class  of  pickpockets,  and  I  had 
known  him  under  the  name  of  "  Billy  Seaver."  I  saw  that 
the  two  were  well  met  to  work  together. 

Purvis  and  his  party's  game  ending,  Williams  proposed 
to  take  a  hand ;  and  a  party  being  made  up,  Purvis  contin- 
ued to  play,  not  neglecting  to. take  wine  occasionally.  On 
one  occasion  Williams,  accompanying  him  to  the  sideboard, 
I  noticed  the  former  turn  suddenly  about,  as  he  said,  "  Mr. 
Purvis,  join  me  in  claret  this  time, —  an  unfashionable 
drink,  to  be  sure  "  (with  a  most  graceful  smile).  "  I 
that  you  take  sherry  generally,"  and  having  suited  the 
action  to  the  word,  had  poured  out  a  glass,  which  he  handed 
to  Purvis,  who  took  and  drank  it.  I  had  no  doubt  that 
Williams  had  skilfully  "drugged"  that  dram;  and  my 
interest  began  to  deepen  now  that  my  observations  would 
have  to  continue  for  several  hours.  At  length  I  united  in 
a  irame  with  several  new  in-comers,  and  posted  myself  at 
the  table  where  I  could  easily  watch  Purvis  and  his  friends. 
He  played  on  well  for  a  while,  but  by  and  by  I  saw  he 
began  to  grow  a  little  stupid.  At  this  time  Williams,  who 
was  a  good  talker,  entered  upon  the  recital  of  many  curi- 
ous tales  ("good  stories,"  as  they  are  called  among  his 
class,  but  which  were  not  so  "  good  "  as  to  bear  repeating 
here),  and  tried  to  keep  up  Purvis's  waning  spirits  with 
laughter  and  jokes.  And  so  Purvis  was  kept  at  the  board, 
while  the  drug  was  constantly  doing  its  sure  and  secret 
work.  Purvis  lost  considerably,  and  occasionally  reverted 
to  his  wallet  for  supplies. 

An  hour  or  so  went  on,  when  Ellsworth,  who  took  no 
practical  interest  in  the  game,  said  to  Williams,  "  Isn't  it 
about  time  for  honest  people  to  be  a-bed?  Hadn't  we  bet- 
ter go?" 

"  Just  as  you  like ;  and  I  presume  Mr.  Purvis  would 
like  to  go  to  his  hotel.  I  declare,"  said  he,  turning  to  the 
clock  on  the  mantel,  "  it  is  later  than  I  thought." 


AN   ABDUCTION.  549 

Presently  the  three  sallied  out.  With  some  difficulty 
was  it  that  Purvis  moved.  "They  reached  the  sidewalk, 
and  Ellsworth  said,  "  Mr.  Williams,  let's  go  up  to  the  St. 
Nicholas  with  Mr.  Purvis,"  taking  Purvis  by  the  arm  in  a 
quiet  way ;  and  they  started.  The  distance  was  so  short, 
that  on  reaching  the  walk  from  the  stairs,  where  I  over- 
heard the  proposition,  I  thought  I  would  not  follow  too 
speedily.  They  had  not  gone  on  their  way  over  a  minute 
at  most,  Avhen  an  alarm  of  fire  on  the  corner  of  Howard 
and  Broadway  arrested  my  attention,  as  I  thought  but 
for  a  minute  or  so,  —  but  time  flies  on  such  occasions, 
and  it  might  have  been  five  minutes,  —  when,  turning  to 
look  after  my  men,  I  could  not  see  them,  but  rushed  on  to 
the  hotel.  Not  finding  them  there,  I  sought  the  clerk,  to 
loam  if  Purvis  had  taken  his  key  and  gone  to  his  room. 
He  had  seen  nothing  of  Purvis  at  all,  "since  early  in  the 
evening,"  he  said. 

Where  could  the  scoundrels  have  taken  him  ?  O,  they 
must  have  dropped  into  one  of  the  coaches  standing  at  all 
hours  of  night  near  the  hotel ;  that  was  my  solution  of  the 
matter,  and  I  knew  it  would  be  folly  to  attempt  to  follow 
them  farther ;  and  I  had  nothing  to  do  but  to  withdraw  to 
iny  rooms  and  go  to  bed,  and  await  the  issue  —  clew  to 
which  I  felt  sure  to  get  next  day. 

I  took  the  night  clerk  into  my  confidence  sufficiently  to 
tell  him  that  I  suspected  Purvis  would  be  victimized,  lose 
his  money,  and  perhaps  his  life ;  but  conjured  him  to  keep 
still,  if  he  should  chance  to  return  before  morning;  watch 
those  who  might  come  with  him,  and  be  sure  to  get  the 
number  of  the  coach  and  name  of  the  driver,  if  he  should 
bo  brought  back  in  a  carriage,  and  then  find  out  if  and 
how  he  had  been  "  played  with,"  and  to  send  me  word :  all 
of  which  he  promised  to  do,  entering  with  spirit  into  the 
enterprise.  1  went  home,  feeling  sure  that  the  clerk  would 
give  me  an  intelligent  report  if  anything  wrong  happened. 

Next  morning,  about  seven  o'clock,  1  was  awakened  at 
my  rooms  by  the  clerk,  who  told  me  that,  an  hour  before, 


850  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

Purvis  had  been  pitched  into  the  entrance  way  of  'he 
hotel,  in  a  state  of  stupidity  so  great  that,  after  a  Kalf 
hour's  attempt  to  arouse  him,  they  had  sent  for  a  doctor; 
that  instantly  on  hearing  the  noise  of  his  advent,  he  had 
rushed  to  the  door,  only  to  see  a  tall  man  running  down 
street,  while  a  coach,  at  some  distance  off,  was  driving 
rapidly  up;  but  whether  the  coach  had  any  connection 
with  the  matter  he  thought  was  doubtful.  But  he  had 
examined  Purvis's  clothes,  which  were  much  stained  and 
soiled,  and  found  a  cut  in  the  right  side,  over  his  wallet 
pocket,  but  "  not  large  enough  to  let  out  much  of  a  purse,'' 
lie  said.  As  the  wallet  was  large,  I  fancied  that  this  cut 
had  been  made,  possibly,  as  they  left  the  gaming-rooms, 
and  not  succeeding  with  that,  had  taken  Purvis  away  to 
"finish"  him,  —  which  was  doubtless  the  ca<--. 

1  dressed  myself  rapidly  as  possible,  and  hurried  to  the 
hotel.  Purvis  had  been  carried  to  his  room;  and  a  doctor 
and  his  student,  a  tall,  good-looking,  sympathetic  fellow, 
were  attending  him.  The  doctor  administered  some  medi- 
cines as  well  as  he  could,  and  then  performed  some  quite 
vigorous  manipulations  of  Purvis's  body.  The  student 
said  that  he  was  a  native  of  Louisville,  and  knew  Purvi-'s 
family  very  well,  and  that  he'd  give  five  hundred  dollars 
himself  for  the  detection  of  the  scamps  who  had  ill  tre:itr<l 
Purvis.  He  warmed  up  to  great  height  on  the  occasion,  in 
true  Southern  style,  generous  and  ardent.  I  took  a  great 
fancy  to  him,  and  when  the  doctor  left  urged  the  student 
to  remain,  which  he  gladly  did.  We  watched  by  Purvis's 
side  tor  an  hour  and  a  half  before  he  sufficiently  recovered 
to  recognize  his  Louisville  friend,  and  to  answer  ni<-  as  1.1 
how  much  he  had  lost,  —  which  was  what  I  most  desired 
t<»  know.  Where  he  had  been  he  had  no  memory  of.  All 
was  a  blank  to  him;  but  he  knew  that  the  evening  before 
he  had  a  thousand  and  sixty  dollars  with  him  —  a  thousand 
in  hi-*  wallet,  in  the  side  coat  pocket,  and  the  sixty  in  vari- 
ous jM.rk.-t*.  He  had  paid  a  bill  a  day  before  for  parties 
in  Louisville,  and  had  so  much  left,  only  about  half  of 


A   WARM    DAYS    WORK.  351 

which  belonged  to'him,  the  remainder  belonged  to  tho 
Louisville  parties  ;  "  which  makes  the  matter  a  la-ap 
worse,"  as  he  said. 

When  I  had  learned  so  much,  1  set  about  laying  my 
plans,  within  myself,  for  catching  Ellsworth  and  Williams. 
I  had  no  doubt  that  they  werxi  still  in  the  city,  so  secret 
had  been  their  operations,  as  they  probably  supposed;  and 
thinking  I  might  need  help,  took  into  rny  counsels,  as  far 
as  I  thought  best,  my  young  friend,  the  stalwart  student. 
He  was  all  on  fire  for  the  work,  if  we  should  chance  to 
come  across  the  enemy ;  and  we  started  forth,  he  to  arm 
himself  at  his  rooms,  I  to  prepare  myself,  and  we  to  "  ren- 
dezvous "  at  the  St.  Nicholas  in  an  hour. 

Coming  together,  I  bethought  me  that  perhaps  Purvis's 
wallet  might  have  some  private  mark  by  which  it  might 
be  identified ;  and  we  went  up  to  his  room  to  inquire,  and 
learned  that  the  wallet  was  the  gift  of  his  brother,  and 
bore,  under  the  principal  clasp,  in  faded  gilding,  the  letters, 
u  C.  H.  P.,  L'ville."  The  letters  were  quite  ooscure  now, 
he  said.  And  we  started  on  our  search.  I  fancied  1  could 
readily  find  Williams's  lodgings,  and  that  he  would  likely 
be  there,  in  a  state  of  more  or  less  sleepiness,  and  his  com- 
peer Ellsworth  with  him.  But  I  had  counted  without  my 
host  that  day:  and  though  we  were  constantly  going  from 
point  to  point,  in  our  investigation?,  nothing  had  we 
learned  when  nightfall  came,  and  we  were  very  weary. 
Passing  up  Roosevelt  Street,  having  had  occasion  to  go 
down  to  the  Williamsburg  Ferry,  a  tall  man  brushed  rap- 
idly by  us,  whom  I  at  once  discovered  to  be  Williams,  who 
suddenly  dropped  into  a  little  filthy  cellar  oyster  saloon, 
and  we  followed.  Williams  had  taken  a  seat  at  the  remote 
corner  of  the  dirty  room,  and  called  for  a  stew.  He  looked 
haggard,  as  if  he  had,  not  long  ago,  been"  on  a  tremendous 
spree.  We  called  for  oysters  roasted  in  shell,  as  likely  to 
be  the  most  cleanly  in  that  dirty  crib. 

Williams  was  quite  "nervous,"  and  spilled  the  broth  over 
himself  considerably,  and  I  half  conjectured  that  he,  too, 


352  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

lia.l  been  drugged.  I  knew  he  must  h;«ve  taken  the  wallet, 
and  that  perhaps  lie  had  it  about  him  then:  but  1  had  no 
warrant  to  arrest  him  on  the  spot,  hut  must  follow  him 
I'.irther.  He  arose,  having  finished  his  meal,  and  started 
straight  for  the  door,  and  opening  it,  was  going  out.  when 
t!u-  dirty  Iri<h  woman  who  kept  the  shop  exclaimed.  "  Look 
lii-re.  mistur,  is  that  the  way  gintlemens  tratcs  ladies? 
I>on't  yer  pay  for  yer  vittals  when  yer  takes  'em?" 

Williams,  who  hardly  knew  whiit  he  was  about,  had 
not,  I  presume,  intruded  to  "  beat "  the  woman  (to  use  the 
sling  phrase  for  cheat),  but  he  was  maddened  by  the 
woman's  gross  manner,  and  turned  upon  her  with  an  oath. 

"  Be  jabers."  screamed  the  woman !  "  Gintlemen,"  turning 
to  us,  "  will  yees  see  a  poor  honest  woman, so  there!"  (the 
tears  coming  into  her  eyes)  "  chated  by  the  likes  o'  that 
dirthy  blaggard  ?  Ketch  him,  and  hould  him  !  "  (flourishing 
a  hiir  spoon,  like  a  sword,  in  air). 

My  impulsive  student  friend  needed  no  more  encourage- 
ment, and  quickly  catching  Williams  in  his  brawny  arms. 
exclaimed,  "Here,  you  scamp!  pay  this  woman  before  you 
go,  or  you'll  stay  here  all  night,"  pulling  him  at  the  same 
time  up  to  the  little  dirty  counter,  behind  which  the  woman 
stood.  Half  drunk,  Williams,  finding  himself  in  a  strong 
man's  grasp,  was  instantly  quiet,  and  began  fumbling  for 
his  money.  In  his  search  he  pulled  out  a  silk  sash  —  as  it 
proved,  a  stolen  one  at  that  —  from  his  inner  side  coat 
pocket,  when  out  tumbled  a  plethoric  wallet  with  it. 

"  Be  jabers,  that's  a  fat  one,  indade!"  said  the  woman: 
"  the  gintlcman  has  money  enough  to  buy  out  old  Astor 
and  all  his  kin." 

Williams,  more  intoxicated  than  I  thought  at  first, 
seemed  to  \\\k<-  no  heed  of  this,  and  after  he  had  managed 
to  fish  out  of  his  [K)cket  money  enough  to  pay  the  old 
woman,  I  took  up  the  wallet,  and  said,  "  Here,  don't  le;i\  •• 
this  ;  you'll  want  it." 

He  looked  in  ama/ernent.  as  he  started  towards  me, as  he 
BHW  me  deliberately  opening  the  clasp.  There  were  the 


THE  UNCLAIMED   WATCH.  355 

self-same  initials  Purvis  had  told  us  of.  "  I  will  keep 
this,  Mr.  Williams,"  said  I ;  "  this  is  what  I  am  after. — Old 
woman,  this  man  is  a  pickpocket.  —  Bolt  the  door ! "  I 
exclaimed  to  my  student  friend,  which  he  did  instantly. 
"Take  charge  of  Williams  while  I  examine  the  wallet;  and 
you,  old  woman,  keep  quiet ;  and,  Williams,  don't  you  dare 
to  make  the  least  noise,  or  we'll  finish  you  here." 

I  made  rapid  search,  and  found  in  the  wallet  nine  hun- 
dred and  thirty  dollars  (some  of  it  Kentucky  money),  a 
lady's  elegant  gold  enamelled  watch,  and  a  chain  which 
could  not  have  cost  less  than  two  hundred  dollars,  but 
which,  had  been  cut  in  some  of  the  links  —  evidently 
a  recent  prize  of  Williams.  He  would  never  tell  where 
that  watch  came  from ;  and  I  advertised  "  A  lady's  watch, 
taken  from  a  pickpocket.  The  owner  can  have  the  same 
by  identifying  it.  Call  at  No.  —  Broadway,"  for  several 
days,  in  the  papers.  But  no  one  ever  came  to  claim  it, 
and  I  gave  it  to  a  lady,  who  still  wears  it,  subject  to  the 
owner's  reclamation  at  any  time. 

Williams  saw  that  it  was  all  over  with  him,  but  he  pro- 
tested that  he  did  not  abstract  the  wallet ;  that  the  whole 
"  job  "  was  Ellsworth's  ;  and  I  was  willing  to  believe  this 
in  part,  for  Ellsworth  was  the  prime  roper-in.  More  anx- 
ious to  catch  Ellsworth  than  to  punish  Williams,  I  agreed 
that  if  he  would  tell  me  the  whole  story  truly,  and  where 
Ellsworth  could  be  found,  I  would,  on  finding  the  latter, 
let  him,  Williams,  off. 

He  told  me  the  story  in  detail.  They  had  taken  Purvis, 
that  night,  over  to  a  place  in  Williamsburg,  occupied  by 
Ellsworth,  and  his  "  family,"  as  he  pretended.  Purvis  was 
so  stupid  when  they  arrived  there  that  the  coachman  had 
to  assist  them  to  bear  him  into  the  house.  Of  course  the 
process  of  robbery  was  easy  after  that.  But  not  having  a 
good  place  to  keep  Purvis,  and  that  matter  being  danger- 
ous, too,  they  had  hired  another  coach  near  morning,  and 
brought  him  over  to  New  York,  Williams  coming  alone 
with  him.  He  would  not  tell  me  the  coachman's  name,  — 
21  H* 


356  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

the  one  of  the  night  before,  —  but  said  he  had  "bled" 
tlu'in  to  the  tune  of  fifty  dollars  for  his  services. 

He  had  been  over  to  Williamsburg,  and  was  on  his  \\-.\y 
hark,  taking  with  him  the  money,  which  he  was  to  divide 
the  next  day,  at  a  certain  hour,  in  a  place  he  named  in  the 
Bowery,  with  Ellsworth,  who  would  be  there. 

I  did  not  credit  his  story,  to  be  sure ;  but  still  I  was 
there  duly,  and  found  Williams,  who  pretended  surprise 
as  he  came  in  with  an  officer  (into  whose  keeping  I  had 
given  him,  —  having  called  him  before  we  left  the  shop, — 
on  a  charge  of  forgery,  not  telling  him  I  knew  the  real 
state  of  the  case),  at  not  finding  Ellsworth  up  to  his  ap- 
pointment. But  my  story  is  running  into  too  much  detail. 
Suffice  it  that  we  got  back  to  the  hotel  as  speedily  as  we 
could,  and  a  more  delighted  man  than  was  Mr.  Purvis,  on 
the  recovery  of  so  much  of  his  money,  can  hardly  be  ima- 
gined. He  gave  the  watch,  of  course,  into  my  keeping, 
and  in  spite  of  all  my  protestations,  compelled  me  to  re- 
ceive a  much  larger  sum  than  would  have  amply  satis- 
fied me. 

I  pursued  Ellsworth  somewhat  afterwards,  visiting  his 
"  family  "  in  Williamsburg,  but  I  could  not  get  track  of 
him  for  a  long  while,  when  he  turned  up  in  another  city, 
and  I  chanced  to  make  him  available  in  the  detection  of 
sundry  other  rogues.  But  that  story  is  sui  generis,  and  I 
must  not  mar  it  by  a  recital  of  a  part  here.  , , .  * 

As  for  the  brave  medical  student  (whose  name  I  have 
purposely  withheld),  he  became  a  fast  friend  of  mine,  and 
afterwards  we  had  several  adventures  together,  some  of 
which  I  purpose  to  relate,  should  I  at  some  other  time  feel 
more  in  the  spirit  to  do  so. 

Enough  to  know  now,- that  he  is,  for  his  years,  an  emi- 
nent physician,  with  a  large  practice,  in  a  district  in  the 
South,  and  married  to  a  most  beautiful  woman,  whose 
acquaintance  he  made  while  once  playing  the  amateur  de- 
tective. In  some  of  these  papers,  perhaps,  his  name,  if  he 
permits,  will  be  disclosed.  Had  he  given  himself  to  the 


A  LESSON  CHEAPLY  BOUGHT.  357 

business,  I  conceive  that  he  could  not  have  had  a  success- 
ful rival,  as  a  detective,  in  the  world.  The  same  knowl- 
edge of  human  nature  which  the  detective  needs,  cannot 
but  serve  the  physician  to  great  advantage. 

Mr.  Purvis  said  that  if  he  had  wholly  lost  the  thousand 
dollars,  the  lesson  he  had  learned  would  have  been  cheaply 
bought. 


THE  WOLF  IN  SHEEP'S  CLOTHING. 


THE  ANTIQUITY  OF  THAT  SHEEP'S  SKIN  AND  ITS  PIOUS  USEFULNESS  —  A 
LARGE  LOSS  OF  SILKS,  SATINS,  LACES,  AND  OTHER  GOODS  —  A  CON- 
8PLTATION  — A  LONG  STUDY  —  THE  VARIOUS  CHARACTERS  OF  SEVERAL 

CLERKS,  WHAT    THEY    DID,    AND     HOW    THEY     KILLED    "  SPARK    TIME" 

INFLUENCE  OF  THE  CITY  ON  MORALS  —  NEW  YORK  CENTRAL  PARK  — 
A  MOST  WONDERFUL  SERIES  OF  THEFTS  —  THE  MATTER  INEXPLICABLE  AT 
FIRST,  GROWS  MORE  SUBTLE  —  A  GLEAM  OF  LIGHT  AT  LAST  —  A  BIUGHT 

ITALIAN    BOY  PLAYS  A    PART  A    LADY    FOLLOWED  —  MORE    LIGHT AN 

EXTEMPORIZED  SERVANT  OF  THE  CROTON  WATER  BOARD  GETS  INSIDE  A 
CERTAIN  HOUSE  —  SARAH  CROGAN  AND  I  —  HOW  A  HOUSE  IN  NINETEENTH 
8TRERT  DELIVERED  UP  ITS  TREASURES  —  "  WILLIAM  BRUCE,"  ALIAS 
CHARLES  PHILLIPS  —  A  VERY  STRANGE  DENOUEMENT  —  A  MEEK*  MAN 

TRANSFORMED;  HIS  RAGE  —  A  DELIVERY  up,  WITH  ACCOMPANYING  JEW- 
ELS—  A  •'  WIDOW"  NOT  A  WIDOW  BEMOVES  —  WHAT  SARAH  CROGAN 
THOUGHT. 

TT  is  an  astonishing  thing  to  a  detective,  and  ought  to 
be  to  every  person  of  sense,  it  seems  to  me,  that  after 
the  experiences  of  ages  "  the-wolf-in-sheep's-clothing"  still 
keeps  on  deluding  people.  Everybody  ought  by  this  time 
to  know  the  animal,  arid  everybody  docs,  in  a  sense  ;  but 
everybody  has  heard  of  him,  and  seen  him  somewhere 
along  the  path  of  life,  and  either  been  bitten  by  him,  or 
sorely  frightened,  or  something  of  the  sort.  Yet  forever 
he  is  playing  his  wiles  with  success  with  everybody ;  and 
his  sheep  skin  is  the  same  one  he  has  used  ever  since  his- 
toric time  began,  and  perhaps  long  before  that  But  I 
did  not  take  my  pen  to  descant  upon  the  blunders  and 
stupidities  of  my  fellow-mortals,  or  to  adorn  this  page  with 
a  lecture  on  morals  and  hypocrisies,  but  to  tell  a  tale  in 
which,  perchance,  a  "  moral ':  will  be  better  "  painted  "  by 
the  facts  it  discloses  than  by  my  discursive  pen. 

I  was  called  upon  one  day  by  the  confidential  clerk  of  a 


THE  EXTENSIVE  ROBBERY.  359 

large  mercantile  house  in  tin's  city,  and  informed  by  him 
that  he  had  been  sent  by  one  of  the  partners  of  the  hou?e, 
—  the  other  partners  being  abroad,  one  in  Europe,  and  one 
in  the  South,  —  in  regard  to  the  matter  of  extensive  rob- 
beries from  their  store  ;  and  it  had  been  thought  best  that 
I  should  be  made  acquainted  with  the  chief  facts  before 
visiting  the  house  —  as  they  supposed,  of  course,  he  said, 
I  should  wish  to.  I  told  him  (and  here,  for  sake  of  brevity, 
let  me  give  him  a  name,  which  is  correct  only  in  the 
initial  letters  —  Charles  Phillips)  —  I  told  Mr.  Phillips  that 
his  policy  was  quite  right,  and  that  I  would  listen  then 
and  there  to  his  story.  He  went  on  to  recount  that,  prob- 
ably for  a  long  while,  the  house  had  been  robbed  of  various 
kinds  of  goods,  but  that  of  late,  particularly,  they  had  been 
greatly  annoyed  by  missing  large  quantities  of  the  highest 
priced  goods :  their  best  silks,  satins,  laces,  etc.,  which, 
being  costly  goods,  amounted,  as  nearly  as  they  could  cal- 
culate, —  in  one  month's  loss,  too,  —  to  some  eighteen  hun- 
dred dollars ;  "  and  of  course,"  said  he,  "  the  loss  may  be 
more,  for  perhaps  we  do  not  know  all  we  have  lost.  He 
told  me  of  plans  which  he  and  the  partner  at  home  had 
devised  to  find  out  the  thief  or  thieves,  and  the  watch  that 
had  been  set,  all  to  no  avail.  He  had  a  different  opinion 
about  it,  he  said,  from  the  partner,  who  thought  some  of 
the  clerks  must  be  the  guilty  parties  ;  and  it  did  seem  so, 
sometimes,  he  said,  for  the  store  was  well  watched  nights 
by  a  trusty  watchman,  whom  he  himself  had  watched  as 
well,  and  felt  confident  that  he  could  have  no  confederates ; 
and.  besides,  the  things  taken  were  not  usually  in  reach 
of  customers  —  only  the  clerks  could  get  at  them.  So  he 
thought  his  employer  excusable,  perfectly,  for  his  suspicion 
that  some  of  the  clerks  must  be  the  thief.  Yet  for  his 
part  he  could  not  believe  it,  inasmuch  as  he  had  known  all 
the  clerks  so  long,  —  five  years,  a  majority  of  them,  and 
the  rest  of  them,  save  three,  who  had  been  but  from  two  to 
six  months  in  the  house,  for  from  one  year  up  to  three  and 
four ;  and  he  thought  he  knew  all  about  them,  and  could 


360  KNOTS   UNTIED 

not  allow  himself  to  suspect  any  one  of  them.  But,  nev- 
ertheless, his  employer,  who  could  not  in  his  own  mind 
fasten  suspicion  upon  any  specific  person,  had  fully  made 
up  his  mind  that  some  of  the  clerks  were  guilty,  and  they 
were  now  going  to  wake  up  the  matter,  if  possible,  and 
'•  bring  things  to  a  focus,"  as  he  expressed  it. 

I  listened  to  what  Mr.  Phillips  had  to  say,and  inquired  how 
many  clerks  there  were  in  the  establishment,  when  he  in- 
formed me  that,  aside  from  himself,  there  were  thirty-seven. 

"Thirty-seven?"  said  I ;  "and  you  are  not  able  to  say 
that  any  one  of  these  is  more  innocent  or  less  guilty  than 
another,  eh  ?  " 

"No." 

"  Well,  then,  we've  a  job  on  hand  which  may  last  for  a 
good  while,  and  require  not  only  time,  but  patience,  and  a 
good  deal  of  money  to  work  out;  for  we  might  hit  on  the 
thief  the  first  thing,  but  we  might  not  be  able  to  identify 
him  till  we  had  been  through  with  all  the  rest,  and  satis- 
fied ourselves  of  their  innocence,  you  see,  and  it  may  cost 
your  house  more  than  it  would  to  suffer  the  losses,  and 
let  accident,  perhaps,  hereafter  disclose  the  guilty  party." 

"  I  have  talked  this  very  point  over  with  Mr.  Redding," 
(the  partner),  said  he,  "and  he  says  the  firm  must  go  to 
any  necessary  cost  to  find  the  thief,  and  put  a  stop  to 
peculations ;  that  the  house  cannot,  in  fact,  long  do  busi- 
ness at  this  rate  of  loss,  and  he's  made  up  his  mind  to  go 
into  the  matter  thoroughly,  and  when  he  gets  7tts  head  set, 
there's  no  moving  him.  The  house  must  go  ahead  in  this 
business,  and  let  you  have  your  way  about  it." 

I  learned  from  Mr.  Phillips  that  many  of  the  goods  taken 
were  of  a  peculiar  kind,  but  after  all,  not  to  be  readily 
identified,  if  the  private  marks  of  the  house  were  removed  ; 
"  and  any  thief,"  Baid  he,  "  shrewd  enough  to  steal  from 
our  store,  at  the  rate  the  thefts  have  been  going  on  for  the 
last  few  weeks,  is  wise  enough,  I  dare  say,  to  leave  noth- 
ing of  a  story-telling  nature  on  the  goods.  He's  probably 
removed  our  private  marks  at  his  earliest  convenience." 


A  GENERAL   SURVEY.  361 

After  our  conference  was  over,  and  I  had  agreed  to  call 
at  the  store  the  next  day,  in  the  capacity  of  a  wholesale  cus-' 
tomer  "  from  Buffalo,"  and  Mr.  Phillips  was  gone,  I  set  my- 
self to  work  at  some  theory  in  the  case,  and  found  myself 
quite  baffled  at  every  point.  I  had  riot  facts  enough  yet 
in  my  possession  to  form  an  opinion  ;  and  as  I  prided  my- 
self in  those  days,  more  than  I  do  now,  on  my  unerring 
skill  in  detecting  a  thief  by  his  countenance,  I  resolved  to 
theorize  no  more  till  I  had  gone  through  the  house,  and 
scrutinized  each  clerk's  face.  But  that  night  I  talked  the 
matter  over  with  certain  of  my  brother  detectives,  for  it 
was  evident  that  there  was  work  enough  to  be  done,  if 
we  wished  to  save  time,  for  several  of  them.  Each  of  my 
men  thought  the  matter  could  be  easily  solved.  Some  of 
the  clerks  were,  of  course,  the  thieves,  and  they  only 
needed  to  be  "  spotted  "  for  a  few  nights  at  once,  and  sure 
as  fate  the  guilt}'  one  would  be  brought  to  light  'twas 
agreed  ;  but  it  didn't  prove  so  easy  a  job,  after  all. 

The  next  day  I  called  upon  Mr.  Redding,  it  having  been 
understood  between  me  and  Mr.  Phillips  that  he  was  not 
to  recognize  me  before  the  clerks,  until  after  I  might  have 
been  presented  to  him  by  Mr.  Redding,  and  then  only  cur- 
sorily. I  handed  Mr.  Redding  a  note  which  I  had  prepared, 
and  as  he  did  not  know  me  personally,  and  was  a  little 
taken  aback  at  what  I  said  in  the  note,  I  giving  him  sun- 
dry orders  and  directions  therein,  his  strangership  to  me 
was  quite  evident  to  the  clerks  who  chanced  to  be  about 
when  we  met.  Mr.  Redding  showed  me  all  the  distinc- 
tion that  I  required,  and  himself  showed  me  through  the 
establishment.  It  was  a  long  list  of  goods,  indeed,  that 
which  I  prized,  in  every  department;  and  we  took  our 
time,  in  order  that  I  might  have  the  amplest  opportunity 
to  study  each  clerk's  face,  which  I  did  to  my  satisfaction, 
but  to  no  certainty  as  to  which  one  if  any  was  the  thief. 
I  thought  that  either  my  usual  sagacity  had  fled  me,  or 
else  that  the  clerks  were  a  singularly  honest  set  of  young 
men,  and  withal  exceedingly  well  chosen  and  clever. 


3G2  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

I  was  at  times  tempted  to  suspect  one  or  two  of  them ; 
'  but  I  could  not  tell  why,  and  came  to  the  conclusion  at 
last  that  this  temptation  resulted  rather  from  my  anxiety 
to  "  spot "  some  one,  than  from  good  judgment ;  and  I  con- 
cluded that  part  of  the  business  without  having  arrived 
at  any  conclusion  whatever  as  to  the  guilty  parties.  After 
this  Mr.  Redding  called  his  chief  confidential  clerk,  Mr. 
Phillips,  into  the  counting-room,  and  we  quietly  talked 
over  the  matter.  At  Mr.  Redding's  request,  Mr.  Phillips 
produced  such  a  list  as  they  had  been  able  to  make  of  the 
goods  lost,  which  amounted  in  all  to  quite  an  astonishing 
sum ;  but  of  these  things  they  could  inform  me  of  nothing 
which  was  very  peculiar  in  its  nature  —  nothing  the  like 
of  which  other  stores  had  not.  But  1  finally  requested  to 
see  some  of  the  richest  silks,  such  as  those  they  had  lost, 
and  was  taken  by  Mr.  Redding  to  see  Chem.  1  have  a 
pretty  accurate  eye  for  forms  and  colors,  and  I  paid  spe- 
cial attention  to  a  piece  of  silk,  the  like  of  which  I  had 
never  seen,  and  the  cost  of  which  was  more  than  that  of 
any  other  piece  in  the  store.  It  was  a  heavy  silk  —  would 
stand  alpne,  and  had  in  it  "  ribs,"  after  the  fashion  some- 
what of  a  twisted  column,  the  pattern  of  which  was  per- 
haps borrowed  from  a  column  in  the  court  of  some  old  con- 
vent, such  as  I  had  often  seen  in  Italy,  where  for  a  year  I 
was  occupied  in  that  country  ferreting  out  some  scamps 
who  had  fled  there  from  Philadelphia,  and  who  were  badly 
wanted  to  settle  sundry  accounts.  With  the  association 
of  the  "  riba  "  and  the  column,  1  was  not  likely  to  forget 
that  piece  of  silk.  But  other  houses  had  the  like,  and  I 
might  not  bo  able  to  identify  the  piece  as  coming  from  Mr. 
Redding's  store,  if  I  should  chance  to  come  across  it  in 
eomo  retail  store,  at  the  pawnbroker's,  or  anywhere  else. 
Yet  it  might  prove  a  clew,  and  I  put  my  faith  in  it ;  with 
what  result,  will  be  seen  further  on,  for  I  cannot  mar  my 
narrative  by  introducing  it  here. 

It  was  quite  evident  to  me  that  the  thief  must  be  some 
one  or  more  of  the  clerks  ;  and  I  could  not,  on  inquiry  into 


A   "CHICKEN-HEARTED"  MAN.  363 

the  habits  of  the  clerks,  so  far  as  Mr.  Redding  understood 
them,  or  in  any  way,  fix  upon  any  one  of  the  clerks  as 
more  likely  than  another  to  be  the  thief.  These  young 
men  had  been  well  selected ;  were  smart  fellows,  each  in 
his  way.  Indeed,  Mr.  Redding  thought  that,  on  the  whole, 
his  house  had  the  best  set  of  clerks  of  all  the  houses  in 
the  city,  and  although  he  was  convinced  that  some  one  or 
more  of  them  (and  he  as  well  as  1  inclined  to  the  no- 
tion that  there  must  be  two  at  least)  were  guilty,  yet  he 
said  he  would  gladly  give  a  thousand  dollars  if  the  guilt 
could  be  fastened  upon  somebody  without  the  store ;  for 
the  house  had  always  treated  its  clerks  as  if  they  were 
the  partners'  own  children  in  many  respects,  and  given 
the  clerks  rather  better  wages  than  they  could  get  any- 
where else,  and  some  unusual  privileges.  They  had  near- 
ly all  been  long  with  the  house,  and  I  thought  that  Mr. 
Redding  seemed  to  suffer  as  much  from  the  fear  that  some 
of  the  clerks  would  prove  to  be  the  guilty  party,  as  from 
the  loss  of  the  goods  themselves.  In  fact,  he  confessed 
that  he  felt  "  chicken-hearted "  about  the  matter,  as  he 
expressed  it;  but  his  partners'  interest*  as  well  as  his 
own  must  be  looked  to,  and  so  he  was  resolute. 

I  returned  to  my  office,  and  set  about  immediate  pre- 
parations on  the  work.  I  was  going  at  it  that  night,  and 
I  saw  that  there  was  no  other  way  than  to  take  matters 
coolly,  and  work  systematically.  I  sent  for  some  of  my 
men,  having  apprised  Mr.  Redding  that  it  would  "  cost 
something"  to  work  up  the  case,  and  that  to  do  it  within 
any  conscionable  time  I  must  set  several  men  at  work. 
He  had  given  me  quite  a  wide  range  for  expenses,  saying 
that  it  would  not  do  to  be  guilty  of  any  laches  in  the  busi- 
ness for  want  of  means ;  because,  at  the  rate  they  were 
losing  property,  with  all  their  eyes  open  at  that,  they 
would  soon  have  to  give  up  business. 

I  set  my  men  to  keeping  their  eyes  on  certain  of  the 
clerks  whose  places  of  residence  and  names  Mr.  Redding 
had  given  me.  He  had  not  procured  the  streets  and  num- 


364  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

bers  of  all  of  them,  but  was  to  do  so  next  day.  The  clerks 
designated  were  carefully  watched  and  followed,  to  find 
out  how  and  where  they  spent  their  nights,  for  it  was  my 
conjecture,  that  whoever  stole-  the  goods  was  under  the 
influence  of  some  demon  passion ;  that  he  either  gambled, 
and  was  deeply  in  debt,  and  stole,  the  goods  and  sold  them, 
or  that  some  wily  woman  had  him  in  her  power,  or  some 
fiend  of  a  man  was  driving  him  on  in  crime;  and  it  was 
necessary  first  to  find  out  all  about  where  these  young 
men  spent  their  time  out  of  the  store. 

I  took  my  own  place  in  the  work,  and  having  been  so  much 
about  the  store  that  day,  it  was  necessary  that  I  disguise 
myself,  as  I  did ;  and  I  took  my  station  on  Broadway,  near 
the  store,  and  waited  for  the  young  men  to  sally  forth, 
directing  my  men  to  the  boarding-places  of  some  of  the 
clerks,  with  as  accurate  descriptions  of  them  as  I  could 
give. 

I  had  not  long  to  wait  before  some  of  the  clerks  passed 
me,  and  I  selected  two,  whom  I  followed.  Darkness  was 
just  coming  on.  They  stopped  on  a  corner  to  lay  out  their 
programme  for  the  evening,  and  concluded  to  not  go  home 
to  tea,  but  to  go  to  a  restaurant,  where  I  followed  them, 
and  remained  there  till  they  left;  and  when  they  came  out 
they  went  up  Broadway,  and  stopping  before  a  billiard 
saloon,  seemed  to  be  debating  the  question  whether  they 
would  go  up  or  not;  but  finally  they  went  up  the  stairs, 
and  I  remained  behind  a  few  minutes,  and  then  followed 
them.  Somehow,  as  I  entered  the  room,  and  my  eye  fell 
upon  the  face  of  one  of  them,  something  seemed  to  tell  me 
that  he  was  the  guilty  fellow.  The  young  men  had  already 
commenced  a  game,  and  were  busy  with  the  bewitching 
balls.  I  lounged  about,  and  finally  got  a  partner  for  a  sin- 
gle game.  The  young  men  did  not  bet  —  only  played  for 
sport,  and  at  a  seasonable  hour  left,  not  however,  till  I, 
having  observed  that  they  would  soon  depart,  had  gotten 
down  on  to  the  pavement  before  them.  When  they  came 
down,  they  set  off  together,  walked  some  distance  togeth- 


AT   THE   BOWERY  THEATRE.  3C5 

er,  turned  down  a  side  street,  and  on  the  corner  of  it  and 
another  street  bade  each  other  good  night.  One  of  them 
went  on  to  his  boarding-house,  and  so  I  suppose  did  the 
other. 

The  next  night  I  gave  my  particular  attentions  to  those 
same  young  men.  They  went  over  to  the  Bowery  Theatre, 
and  like  sensible  fellows,  too,  had  seats  in  the  pit,  in  which 
part  of  the  house  I  also  secured  a  place.  They  seemed 
to  enjoy  the  play  greatly,  and  one  of  them  threw  a  quar- 
ter of  a  dollar  on  the  stage  in  lieu  of  a  bouquet,  in  testimony 
of  his  appreciation  of  the  splendid  representation  of  a 
mock  Richard  the  Third  by  the  leading  actor,  and  I 
fancied  that  perhaps  I  had  found  out  the  young  man's  lead- 
ing passion  —  his  besetting  sin. 

When  they  left,  the  theatre  they  proceeded  to  an  ale- 
house, and  after  taking  a  mug  apiece  of  somebody's  "  best 
pale  ale,"  sallied  out,  and  wended  their  way  together  home- 
ward, till  they  came  to  the  parting-place  again  ;  and  I  fol- 
lowed the  one  whom  I  did  not  pursue  the  night  before,  only 
to  be  led  on  a  long  distance  up  into  Hudson  Street,  when 
the  young  man  applying  his  night-key  to  the  door  of  a 
very  respectable-looking  house,  entered  and  vanished.  I 
had  begun  to  make  up  my  mind  that  this  sort  of  work 
would  not  do ;  that  these  clerks  were  but  like  ten  thou- 
sand others,  who,  wearied  by  their  day's  work,  sought 
recuperation  in  slight  dissipations,  and,  perhaps,  question- 
able pleasures,  such  as  billiards,  and  comedies,  and  ales 
give.  But  I  followed  up  some  other  of  the  clerks,  report- 
ing every  day  to  Mr.  Redding  or  to  Mr.  Phillips  very  ill 
success.  The  latter  was  particularly  anxious  to  have  mo 
"  go  on,  and  make  thorough  work  of  it ;  "  and  as  the  days 
went  on  I  became  much  attached  to  him. 

My  men,  too,  brought  me  their  accounts  daily,  with  as 
little  success  towards  the  desired  end  as  I  myself  had,  and 
we  were  frequently  on  the  point  of  giving  up  the  job.  We 
concluded  that  perhaps  several  of  the  clerks  were  engaged 
in  this  robbery;  that  they  might  have  formed  a  secret 


366  KNOTS   UNTIED. 


y  among  themselves,  and  that  they  probably  had  a 
place  to  send  their  goods  to,  and  a  skilful  "receiver," 
who  would  pay  them  perhaps  half  price  for  the  goods,  but 
we  could  find  nothing  to  sustain  this  hypothesis.  Two  or 
three  of  the  clerks  were  quite  literary  in  their  tastes,  and 
belonged  to  some  debating  club,  1  forget  the  name  now, 
but  it  was  quite  an  institution  at  the  time,  and  thither  my 
men  had  followed  them,  and  quite  fallen  in  love  with  the 
spirited  manner  and  eloquent  speech-making  of  one  of  the 
clerks.  Of  course  they  followed  these  wherever  they 
went,  and  nothing  could  convince  them  that  these  young 
men  were  guilty.  One  of  the  clerks  was  an  inveterate 
theatre-goer.  He  went  every  night  to  one  theatre  or 
another  ;  but  my  men  found  out  that  he  usually  had  passes, 
and  was,  to  some  extent,  a  dramatic  critic,  furnishing  the 
reporters  of  sundry  papers  with  notes,  and  that  in  this  way 
he  probably  got  his  passes,  and  so  did  not  in  this  way 
waste  much  of  his  slender  salary.  He  neither  smoked  nor 
drank  liquor,  and  seemed  to  be  always  alone,  careless  of 
companionship  ;  so  he  was  dropped  as  "  not  the  man." 
Another  of  the  clerks  had,  it  was  found,  a  strange  fancy  for 
old  books  and  antique  engravings.  He  spent,  evidently,  as 
little  money  on  his  person  as  would  suffice  to  dress  neatly 
and  well  enough  for  his  position,  and  put  all  he  could  have 
into  old  books  and  engravings  ;  and  we  found  that  he  was 
well  known  by  all  those  strange  men,  who  in  these  days 
mostly  collect  in  Nassau  Street,  and  live  among  the  rubbish 
and  dirt  of  old,  and  for  most  part,  worthless  books,  driving 
keen  bargains,  giving  little,  and  asking  much  for  some 
rare  old  folly  of  a  book,  or  some  worthless  volume  in  which 
some  lord  of  the  blood,  or  some  royal  sovereign  of  litera- 
ture, like  Johnson  or  Addison,  had  chanced  to  write  his 
name.  The  young  clerk  had  a  business  man's  as  well 
as  an  artist's  eye  for  these  things,  we  found,  and  was 
said,  by  the  old  book-men,  to  make  such  excellent  assort- 
meiits  nf  engravings,  etc.,  which  he  bound  together,  as  to 
il»le  to  realize  in  their  sale  quite  an  advance  on  the 


INFLUENCE   OF   THE  FINE  ARTS.  367 

original  purchase.  And  so  we  found  merit  instead  of  crime 
in  him,  and  felt  very  sure  that  he  could  be  "  counted  out.'' 
But  we  had  some  singular  experiences-  One  of  the  clerks, 
as  did  indeed  three  of  them,  boarded  in  Brooklyn.  This 
one  was  a  Sunday-school  teacher,  but  he  came  over  to  New 
York  one  Sunday  night  to  attend  a  religious  meeting,  and 
being  particularly  followed  that  night,  he  was  found  going 
into  a  disreputable  "  ladies'  boarding-house."  Some  of  the 
clerks  were  Sunday-school  teachers,  especially  certain  of 
them  who  were  middle-aged,  and  married ;  but  we  discov- 
ered, in  our  scrutiny  of  these  clerks,  that  these  older  ones 
especially,  had  a  habit  of  taking  their  country  customers 
and  friends  to  see  the  sights  of  the  city  at  night,  and  that 
in  order  to  beguile  these  persons,  in  other  words,  to  "  shoAv 
them  proper  attentions,"  they  were  not  scrupulous  about 
forgetting  their  Sunday-school  teachings,  and  taking  these 
customers  into  the  most  questionable  dens  in  the  city.  In 
those  days  the  vulgar  phrase  "  seeing  the  elephant "  was 
more  common  than  now,  and  included  participation  in  all 
sorts  of  small  and  impure  vices.  In  my  opinion,  this  greed 
for  trade,  which  impells  the  competing  clerks  of  different 
houses  to  show  every  possible  attention  of  this  kind  to  the 
young  men  (as  well  as  old,  for  often  the  old  are  worse  than 
the  young)  who  come  to  the  city  to  buy  goods,  has  led  to 
the  downfall,  the  moral  and  financial  ruin,  of  thousands  who 
would  otherwise  have  led  honorable,  and  perhaps  noble 
lives.  But  things  in  this  respect  are  better  now  a  days 
than  they  were  many  years  ago  in  New  York.  The  great 
advance  which  the  fine  arts  have  made  in  this  country,  even 
within  the  last  ten  years,  has  had  much  to  do  with  this 
improvement.  The  theatre  is  "  a  thing  of  beauty  "  and 
attractive  in  comparison  to  what  it  used  to  be ;  and  every- 
where scattered  throughout  the  city  are  many  matters  of 
the  higher  arts  to  attract  and  interest  the  stranger  or  fre- 
quent visitor  even,  and  so  in  a  measure  keep  him  out  of 
harm's  way.  The  Central  Park  has  been  a  great  educator 
of  the  city  people  out  of  vices,  and  has  an  elevating  influ- 


368  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

once  upon  country  people  coming  to  the  city,  many  of 
whom  "  luxuriate  "  in  a  visit  to  it,  instead  of  "  dissipate," 
as  in  years  ago,  in  the  dens  of  the  crowded  city ;  for  in 
winter  even,  when  the  cold  is  intense  enough  to  make  ice, 
joyous  nights  are  spent  in  skating  on  the  Park  pond,  or 
in  beholding  the  witching  gayeties  of  the  accomplished 
skaters. 

But  the  days  went  on,  —  I  almost  daily  conferring  with 
Mr.  Redding,  or  his  accomplished  chief  clerk,  Mr.  Phillips, 
whose  sagacity  and  inventive  genius  pleased  me  greatly. 
He  would  have  made  —  in  fact  was,  in  one  sense  —  one  of 
the  most  shrewd  and  capable  of  detectives.  There  was 
no  avenue  for  the  slightest  suspicion  which  his  keen  brain 
could  not  discover  when  Mr.  Redding  seemed  disposed  to 
give  up  in  despair,  as  from  time  to  time  I  faithfully  report- 
ed to  him  the  empty  results  of  my  own  and. my  men's 
constant  watching,  or  drew  on  the  house,  on  different  occa- 
sions, for  current  expenses.  Mr.  Phillips  stimulated  him  to 
further  endeavor,  feeling,  as  he  said,  and  as  an  honest  man, 
in  his  capacity,  could  not  well  but  feel,  that  the  responsi- 
bility on  his  part  was  morally  as  great  as  if  he  were  the 
pecuniary  sufferer,  and  he  continued  to  bravely  and  nobly 
work  in  the  interest  of  the  house.  But  constantly  the 
peculations  went  on ;  and  so  mysteriously  were  they  con- 
ducted, that  I  believe  it  would  have  required  no  great 
amount  of  argument  to  convince  Mr.  Redding  that  invisible 
hands  took  part  in  the  thefts ;  that  the  spirits  of  some  old 
merchants,  perhaps  (not  having  forgotten  their  greed  of 
gain  in  the  other  world),  were  the  authors  and  doers  of 
this  wickedness ;  for  he  was  half  inclined  to  belief  in  modern 
spiritualism,  and  the  partner  who  was  in  Europe  was  an 
avowed  spiritualist,  his  daughter,  a  sickly  young  lady  of 
eighteen  or  twenty  years  of  age,  being  a  "  medium."  It  was 
partly  for  her  health's  sake  that  the  father  had  taken  her  to 
Europe.  Mr.  Redding  was  confounded,  as  from  time  to  time, 
something  more  of  much  value,  often  of  great  value,  was 
missed.  Finally  he  took  up  his  lodgings  for  a  few  nights 


A  DERNIER  RESORT.  369 

at  the  store,  with  an  inside  and  an  outside  watchman,  and 
with  an  ugly  watch-dog  for  a  companion;  but  this  did 
no  good,  for  valuables  were  still  missed,  and  what  was  the 
most  perplexing  thing,  were  apparently  taken  in  the  night. 
Mr.  Redding  became  sensibly  weak,  looked  haggard,  was 
restless  and  nervous,  and  his  family  physician  ordered  him 
to  suspend  work.  Mr.  Redding  had  great  pride  about  this 
matter,  and  all  the  clerks  were  put  under  an  injunction  of 
secrecy  in  regard  to  the  losses,  and  I  have  reason  to 
think  they  faithfully  respected  the  mandate.  This  secrecy 
was  suggested  as  a  matter  of  pride  as  well  as  prudence, 
for  Mr.  Redding  would  not  have  had  his  brother  merchants 
in  the  city  know  of  the  troubles  in  his  house  for  anything. 
It  would  have  led,  he  thought,  to  the  financial  injury  of  the 
firm. 

Finally,  Mr.  Redding  was  taken  sick,  and  remained  at 
home  for  three  days.  On  the  second  day  he  sent  for  me, 
and  showed  me  an  advertisement  he  had  caused  to  be  put 
in  the  Herald,  calling  for  twenty  clerks  of  experience  in 
the  dry  goods  business,  etc.  "  None  need  apply  who 
cannot  produce  the  best  certificates  of  character,  and  come 
recommended  by  all  parties  in  whose  employ  they  may 
have  ever  been."  He  named  a  box  in  the  Herald  office 
as  the  place  of  address,  and  he  already  had  sent  his  servant 
to  the  Herald  office,  and  when  I  arrived  was  opening  one 
of  over  fifty  letters  received.  He  showed  me  the  adver- 
tisement and  responses  with  an  air  of  pride. 

u  I  have  made  up  my  mind  that  our  salvation  is  in  a 
change  of  clerks,"  said  he.  "  The  innocent  and  guilty 
must  go  alike.  I  will  first  dismiss  twenty, —  fortunately, 
we  make  our  contracts  with  clerks  in  such  way  that  I  can 
do  this,  —  and  after  twenty  new  ones  are  worked  in,  and 
know  our  modes  of  doing  business,  I  will  dismiss  all  the 
rest,  and  fill  their  places  with  new  men.  What  do  you 
think  of  my  new  plan  ?  " 

I  told  him  that,  as  a  dernier  resort,  it  was  probably  wise, 
but  that  fruitless  though  had  been  our  work  heretofore,  I 


370  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

nevertheless  wanted  to  try  further ;  and  I  proposed  that  he 
go  on  and  make  the  acquaintance  of  the  new  applicants  pri- 
vately, examine  their  credentials,  and  get  ready  to  receive 
them,  if  wanted,  in  due  time;  but  that  so  great  and  sud- 
den a  change  of  clerks  could  not  but  tend  to  confuse  hia 
customers,  especially  as  many  of  their  clerks  had  been 
with  him  for  years,  and  they  would  inevitably  take  many 
of  the  customers  with  them ;  while  he  could  not  be  sure 
that  the  newly-incoming  clerks  would  bring  him  any  trade 
at  all.  There  was  a  wildness  in  Mr.  Bedding's  eyes  that 
day,  which  looked  to  me  precursory  of  insanity,  and  I  felt 
that  .anything  like  full  espousal  of  his  plan  would  excite 
him,  and  perhaps  hasten  the  wreck  of  his  intellect.  But 
Mr.  Redding  got  better,  and  reappeared  at  his  store,  and 
he  told  me  when  I  next  met  him  thereafter,  that  he  had  no 
heart  to  turn  away  some  of  his  clerks  who  had  been  so 
long  his  companions,  and  he  found  it  impossible  to  select 
the  first  twenty  for  decapitation. 

Mr.  Redding  communicated  his  plan  to  Mr.  Phillips,  and 
the  latter,  with  his  usual  sagacity,  opposed  it,  suggesting 
several  reasons,  among  which  was  one  which  weighed 
much  with  Mr.  Redding,  to  the  effect  that  he  could  be  no 
surer  of  the  honesty  of  the  new  clerks  than  of  that  of 
the  old,  and  that  it  was  by  no  means  certain  that  like 
losses  were  not  being  suffered  in  other  houses,  and  that 
some  of  these  new  clerks  might  have  been  dismissed  un- 
der like  circumstances  to  those  which  suggested  the  dis- 
mission of  his  own  clerks,  and  he  added,  "If  you  were  to 
dismiss  the  clerks,  you  would  be  obliged,  in  honor,  to  give 
each  one  of  them  the  best  commendation  for  faithfulness 
in  business,  and  you  could  not  conscientiously  refuse  to 
add, '  for  honesty  and  integrity.'  " 

"  No,  no ;  I  could  not  do  less ;  that  is  true,"  said  Mr. 
Redding;  "and  perhaps  the  new  comers  would  bring  cer- 
tificates from  employers  situated  just  as  we  are.  I  had 
not  thought  of  that."  . 

There  was  the  greatest  respect  on  the  part  of  the  under 


A   CONDITION   OF   DESPAIR.  371 

clerks  manifested  towards  Mr.  Phillips,  and  I  doubt  riot 
that  if  he  communicated  this  matter  of  the  proposed 
change,  and  his  opposition  to  it,  to  them,  that  he  won 
upon  their  gratitude  and  regard  still  further.  Mr.  Phillips 
was  indeed  a  model  man  in  every  respect.  He  had  not 
only  great  business  tact,  but  he  had  the  refined  manners 
of  a  cultivated  gentleman,  and  was  evidently  considerable- 
of  a  literary  man  withal,  and  was,  1  was  told,  a  very  happy 
public  speaker.  He  was,  as  I  have  before  observed,  a 
man  of  ready  expedients,  of  fertile  inventive  genius,  and 
it  was  difficult  to  see  how  the  house  could  well  get  on 
without  him.  But  as  the  difficulties  of  the  situation  in- 
creased, Mr.  Phillips  began  to  evince  much  wear  and  tear 
of  mind,  and  he  told  Mr.  Redding,  that  though  his  con- 
tract called  for  two  years  more  of  service  (it  had  been 
three  years  before),  he  thought  he  should  be  compelled  to 
ask  that  the  contract  be  rescinded,  and  he  would  withdraw 
from  business  for  a  while  and  get  rest. 

Mr.  Redding  would  hear  nothing  of  this  ;  but,  of  course, 
he  could  not  oblige,  nor  would  it  have  been  expedient  if  he 
could,  Mr.  Phillips  to  remain,  and  so,  to  cheer  him  up,  and 
secure  his  inestimable  services  longer,  he  agreed  to  ad- 
vance his  salary  from  the  beginning  of  the  next  month  by 
fifty  per  cent.,  and  insisted  that  Mr.  Phillips  should  give 
up  the  old  contract,  and  enter  into  a  new  one  to  that  effect. 
This  was  an  unexpected  turn  of  affairs  for  Mr.  Phillips, 
and  of  course  stirred  his  deepest  gratitude,  and  he  entered 
with  renewed  vigor  into  the  matter  of  the  detection  of  the 
thieves  —  himself  offering,  as  he  did,  to  forego  the  pleas- 
ures of  his  nights  at  home,  in  the  bosom  of  his  charming 
family,  and  occupying  a  couch  at  the  store  with  the  watch- 
man. But  this  lasted  only  a  week,  for  the  robberies  were 
no  less  frequent  during  that  week  than  before ;  and  Mr. 
Phillips  began  obviously  to  experience  something  of  the 
despair  which  had  afflicted  Mr.  Redding  when  he  slept  at 
the  store.  Mr.  Phillips  abandoned  this  course,  and  retired 
ag-iin  to  his  home  for  his  nights'  lodgings,  "  giving  up  all 
22  15 


372  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

hope,"  as  he  expressed  it,  and  sorely  vexed  that  he  had 
entered  into  a  new  contract  on  any  terras. 

Mr.  Redding,  waiting  for  his  partner,  who  was  at  the 
South,  to  return,  and  greatly  tried  that  he  could  get  no 
word  from  him,  had  resolved,  finally,  to  carry  out  his  plan 
of  dismissing  all  the  clerks,  and  obtaining  new,  when  the 
partner  suddenly  came  back,  and  being  made  acquainted 
with  the  state  of  things,  and  feeling  that  Mr.  Redding  had 
not  pursued  the  wisest  course,  undertook  to  manage  affairs 
himself,  by  making  each  clerk  responsible  for  all  the  goods 
within  such  and  such  spaces,  or  in  such  and  such  lines  of 
wares.  This  scheme  worked  well  for  a  few  days ;  but  the 
clerks  revolted  at  it,  as  one  after  another  suffered  losses, 
and  his  partner  became  as  much  perplexed  as  was  Mr. 
Redding.  It  was  evident  now  that  if  one  clerk  was  to  be 
suspected  of  creating  the  4<  losses  "  which  occurred  in  his 
department,  several  were  to  be  suspected,  and  the  partner 
finally  coincided  with  Redding  and  Mr.  Phillips,  who  had 
finally  given  his  judgment  in  favor  of  the  plan  of  thorough 
change,  and  they  proceeded  to  put  their  plan  in  execution, 
by  dismissing  ten  clerks  at  first,  and  employing  ten  new 
ones  in  their  places,  which  was  done. 

The  parting  with  some  of  the  ten  was  quite  affecting ; 
but  each  bore  from  the  house  the  best  possible  written 
commendation,  and  all  were  able,  as  I  was  afterwards  told, 
to  secure  good  situations  in  other  houses.  But  Mr.  Red- 
ding and  his  partner,  seconded  by  Mr.  Phillips,  wished  me 
to  continue  my  investigations  as  I  had  opportunity,  and 
settled  with  mo  up  to  the  time,  and  I  must  add,  gener- 
ously, thanks  to  Mr.  Phillips,  who  suggested  that  though 
we  were  all  foiled,  I  was  entitled  to  more  than  I  charged, 
for  I  had,  he  said,  actually  kept  the  house  on  its  legs  by 
the  moral  support  I  had  given  Mr.  Redding  and  him. 

I  tried  to  dismiss  the  matter  from  my  mind,  but  the 
chagrin  I  felt  at  having  actually  discovered  nothing  kept 
it  constantly  in  memory,  although  I  was  as  constantly  per- 
plexed with  other  and  pressing  business.  I  had  by  no 


TWO  OVER  DRESSED  LADIES.  373 

means  given  up  the  matter  finally,  however;  for  I  had 
known  too  many  cases  before,  where  the  desired  knowl- 
edge or  evidence  came  only  in  accidental,  or  some  most 
unlooked-for  ways,  and  that  a  long  while  after  it  was  most 
wanted,  to  give  up  all  hope  of^solving  this  problem;  and 
finally,  some  three  weeks  from  the  time  to  which  I  last 
refer,  light  began  to  dawn.  I  was  on  a  hurried  mission  in 
a  Fourth  Avenue  horse-car,  on  my  way  to  the  New  Haven 
depot  at  27th  Street,  in  order  to  identify,  if  possible,  a  man 
there  held  in  temporary  custody,  as  the  man  whom  I  was 
seeking,  charged  with  the  commission  of  a  crime  in  New 
Jersey,  when  two  ladies  entered  the  car  at  8th  Street. 
Both  of  them  would  have  been  elegantly  dressed,  only 
that  they  were  "  over-dressed,"  and  sparkling  besides  with 
an  abundance  of  jewelry,  which  suggested  vulgar  breed- 
ing and  sudden  accession  to  wealth. 

The  car  was  already  full,  and  as  no  one  else  stirred,  — 
mostly  travellers  with  their  bags,  on  their  way  to  catch 
the  train  Boston-ward,  —  I  rose,  and  made  place  for  one, 
which  was  immediately  taken,  with  a  bow  of  grateful  rec- 
ognition of  my  courtesy,  for  a  wonder,  by  the  better  look- 
ing of  the  ladies.  I  do  not  know  whether  there  is  such 
a  thing  as  magnetic  attraction  or  not  in  the  world,  but 
sure  it  is  that  somehow  I  felt  that  lady  to  bear  some  im- 
portant relation  to  my  business  before  I  observed  her 
dress  particularly,  and  nothing  could  have  been  further 
from  my  then  present  memory  than  that  dress,  and  at  first 
I  could  not  at  once  call  to  my  mind  where  I  had  seen  any- 
thing like  it ;  but  suffice  it  that  on  slight  inspection  I  dis- 
covered it  to  be  of  the  same  pattern  with  the  one  I  had 
seen  at  Mr.  Bedding's  store,  with  the  twisted-column 
"  ribs."  I  felt  that,  perhaps,  here  was  a  clew  at  last  to  the 
whole  matter,  but  I  was  on  business  of  equally  great  im- 
portance. The  ladies,  perchance,  might  be  going  out  on 
the  next  train,  but  probably  not.  They  might  stop  short 
of  27th  Street,  and  I  must  go  there,  and  what  should  I  do? 
I  surveyed  the  passengers,  stepped  to  the  front  platform, 


374  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

and  cast  a  look  at  a  man  there,  and  saw  nobody  whom  I 
could  address,  and  we  were  making  more  than  usually 
rapid  progress  up. 

I  had  half  resolved  in  my  mind  to  send  word  up  by  the 
driver  to  27th  Street,  and  get  him  to  stop,  by  giving  him  a 
dollar,  and  run  into  the  sfation-house,  and  say  I  would  be 
up  before  long,  and  to  follow  the  ladies  myself,  when,  at 
the  next  crossing,  there  came  on  to  the  rear  platform  of  the 
car  as  bright  a  black-eyed  boy,  of  Italian  parentage,  I  saw 
at  once,  as  could  have  well  been  found  in  the  city.  He 
had  with  him  a  basket,  in  which  he  carried  some  valuable 
toys  for  sale.  I  took  a  fancy  to  the  lad,  and  asked  him 
how  old  he  was.  "  Thirteen,"  was  the  reply,  though  ho 
did  not  look  over  ten  years  of  age.  I  asked  him  if 
he  wished  to  earn  five  dollars  that  afternoon.  His  eyes 
sparkled,  as  he  replied,  "  Yes."  I  inquired  of  him  where 
he  lived,  the  number  of  his  house,  his  name,  that  of  his  par- 
ents, and  so  forth,  and  took  them  all  rapidly  down  on  my 
diary. 

"  Now,"  said  I,  "  here's  my  card.  I  am  one  of  the  offi- 
cers of  the  city,  and  could  find  you  out  in  any  part  of  the 
city  in  the  darkest  night,  and  I  want  to  make  an  officer  of 
you  for  a  little  while  "  (and  the  boy  looked  up  with  proud 
wonder).  "  I  will  take  your  basket ;  you  can  come  for  it 
to-morrow  to  my  office,  and  hero  are  two  dollars  for  you 
to  begin  with.  I  will  give  you  the  three  dollars  to-mor- 
row, and  you  may  bring  your  father  along  with  you,  if  you 
like.  I  should  like  to  see  him,  and  may  be,  if  you  do  well 
in  the  matter  I  am  going  to  tell  you  of,  he'll  let  you  go  to 
live  with  me,  where  you  can  make  a  great  deal  of  money.'1 

I  had  hit  the  right  chord,  and  the  boy  was  all  ears.  In 
a  low  voice  I  told  him  of  the  two  ladies  in  the  cars,  sent 
him  to  look  at  them,  without  their  seeing  him  eye  them, 
and  come  right  out.  I  told  him  that  I  wished  him  to  fol- 
low tin-in,  keeping  at  a  distance  behind,  not  let  them  su.-> 
pect  him,  and  if  they  separated,  to  follow  the  larger  one 
(the  lady  with  the  peculiar  silk  dress),  and  if  she  stopped 


THE  YOUNG  DETECTIVE.  375 

in  stores  or  houses,  to  wait  till  she  came  out,  and  not  give 
up  watching  her  till  he  was  sure  she  had  stopped  for  the 
last  time  that  day,  and  was  at  her  home,  and  to  take  the 
number  and  street,  so  as  to  be  able  to  go  and  point  out 
the  place  to  me.  "  Could  he  do  this  nicely,  and  not  be 
suspected  ?  " 

The  little  fellow's  pride  was  all  aroused.  He  knew  he 
could  do  it  "  all  right,"  and  he  would  follow  her  into  the 
night,  he  said,  if  necessary.  Then  I  told  him  where  I 
lived,  and  put  the  number  on  the  back  of  ray  card,  and 
told  him  if  he  got  hungry  or  benighted  to  come  and  stay 
over  night  at  my  house.  The  little  fellow  had  probably 
never  been  treated  with  such  distinction  before,  for  the 
tears  came  into  his  eyes.  I  had  hardly  got  my  arrange- 
ments with  him  made  when  the  bell  announced  that  some- 
body wished  to  get  out  at  22d  Street,  and  forth  came  the 
two  ladies.  I  clapped  his  cap  over  the  boy'§  eyes,  that 
the  ladies  might  not  not  get  a  glimpse  at  those  wonderful 
"  orbs  "  of  his,  and  took  him  on  to  the  next  street,  when  I 
let  him  off,  with  the  injunction  to  "  stick  to  it,  and  give  me 
a  good  report."  I  had  told  him  to  use  his  money  for  rides 
in  the  omnibuses  or  cars,  if  necessary,  and  I  would  pay 
him ;  and  this  seemed  to  make  him  still  prouder. 

I  felt  that  that  boy,  whose  name  was  Giuseppi  Molinaro, 
—  or  what  would  be  plain  Joseph  Miller,  in  English,  — 
would  do  his  duty.  The  wares  in  his  basket,  which  I  held, 
were  worth  considerable  more  than  two  dollars,  and  I  was 
sure  he  would  come  back  to  me,  and  that  he  had  too  much 
pride  to  come  back  with  a  poor  report ;  and  I  went  on  to 
27th  Street,  and  fortunately  identified  my  man  there.  Had 
I  sent  up  word  by  the  driver,  as  at  first  I  thought  to  do, 
the  fellow  would  have  been  let  go,  and  would  have  soon 
been  in  Connecticut,  beyond  our  reach.  A  search,  which 
revealed  a  peculiar  scar  on  his  left  thigh,  the  result  of  a 
successful  combat  with  a  couple  of  officers  years  before, 
revealed  the  villanous  bank  robber  and  wily  scoundrel 
in  the  general  way,  beyond  question,  and  notwithstanding 


376  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

he  almost  made  me  believe,  by  his  protestations  of  inno- 
cence in  spite  of  my  fine  memory  of  forms  and  countenances, 
that  1  had  not  known  him  eight  years  before.  He,being  prop- 
erly taken  care  of,  I  returned  to  my  home,  thinking  that 
the  boy  might  come  there  in  the  night,  as  he  did,  and  with 
an  excellent  report.  The  little  fellow  had  followed  instruc- 
tions  to  the  letter,  and  I  indulged  him  in  a  detailed  nar- 
rative of  his  exploits,  which  he  gave  with  all  the  spirit 
of  his  race.  The  ladies  had  led  him  a  long  chase,  but  for- 
tunately they  had  only  resorted  to  cars  and  omnibusses, 
had  not  taken  hacks,  and  he  had  managed  to  keep  them  in 
sight ;  and,  to  cut  the  matter  short,  he  had  tracked  the  lady 
in  the  peculiar  silk  evidently  to  her  own  home. 

I  may  properly  stop  here  to  say  that  Giuseppi's  experi- 
ence that  day  gave  him  such  impulse  in  the  way  of  a  de- 
tective's life  that  he  finally  became  an  officer,  and  is  to-day 
one  of  the  most  efficient  young  men  in  his  calling  to  be 
found  anywhere  in  this"  or  any  other  country.  Indeed,  he 
lias  become  rich  in  his  profession  —  a  thing  not  usual  with 
detectives. 

I  had  half  suspected  that  these  over-dressed  ladies  might 
be  traced  into  a  house  of  ill-fame,  —  not  that  they  looked 
altogether  like  prostitutes  of  the  most  "  respectable  "  class, 
but  there  was  enough  in  appearance  to  warrant  a  sus- 
picion,—  and  I  had  rather  dreaded  such  a  result  of  affairs, 
because  such  people  are  so  facile  in  the  expedients  of 
lying,  etc.,  that  if  that  which  the  lady  wore  were  indeed 
the  very  dress-pattern  stolen  from  the  store,  it  would  be 
difficult  to  trace  it  into  the  hands  of  the  thief.  But  the 
boy  had  followed  the  lady  into  the  respectable  quarter  of 
10th  Street,  near  8th  Avenue,  and  I  felt  at  loss.  I  wanted 
him  to  stay,  and  go  with  mo  early  in  the  morning  to  the 
place,  but  he  could  not.  He  said  his  father  might  punish 
him,  although  he  brought  home  five  dollars  and  should  tell 
him  liis  story.  So  I  went  home  with  him,  and  told  his 
[•airiits,  —  he  interpreting  in  parts,  —  what  the  boy  had 
done,  and  what  I  wanted.  Mr.  Molinaro  was  a  very  re- 


IN  MEMORY   OF   SARAH  CROGAN.  377 

spectable  looking  man,  and  followed  the  business  of  an 
engraver  on  wood,  as  well  as  that  of  a  lithographer  also, 
»»nd  I  took  such  an  interest  in  the  family  as  in  time  brought 
the  boy  quite  exclusively  under  my  charge. 

G:useppi  returned  home  with  me,  and  very  early  the  next 
mornuig,  before  but  a  very  few  in  the  city  were  stirring, 
he  and  I  had  taken  notes  of  the  house  in  19th  Street.  It  was 
an  easy  matter,  some  two  hours  thereafter,  to  learn  from 
the  nearest  grocery-man,  and  a  druggist  in  the  vicinity,  the 
name  and  character  of  the  occupants  of  the  house  in  ques- 
tion, and  before  two  days  had  passed  I  had  seen  Mr.  Wil- 
liam Bruce,  —  said  to  be  an  operator  in  Wall  Street, —  the 
gentleman  who  occupied  the  place,  enter  and  depart  twice 
from  that  house,  and  had  recognized  in  him  an  old  acquaint- 
ance. But  I  had  not  possession  of  facts  enough  to  warrant 
my  making  complaint  against  him,  and  so  I  proceeded  to 
Mr.  Redding's  to  burnith  my  memory  as  to  the  kind  of 
articles  which  had  been  stolen  from  the  store,  keeping  the 
secret  of  my  special  desire  from  Mr.  Redding.  His  part- 
ner, together  with  the  faithful  clerk,  Mr.  Phillips,  had  gone 
to  Cincinnati,  to  settle  with  borne  house -which  had  just 
failed,  owing  them  quite  an  amount,  and  would  not  be  back 
under  two  days  or  so,  and  I  had  not  the  advantage  of  Mr. 
Phillips's  assistance  in  instructing  me  in  what  style  of 
goods  had  been  taken ;  but  I  got  as  good  descriptions  from 
Mr.  Redding  as  he  could  give  me,  and  the  next  morning 
found  me  at  the  house -on  19th  Street,  properly  arrayed, 
with  tools  and  all,  in  the  character  of  a  servant  of  the 
Croton  Water  Board,  wishing  to  examine  all  the  pipes, 
lancets,  etc.,  in  the  house. 

Sarah  Crogan,  as  she  gave  me  her  name,  —  a  buxom, 
laughing  Irish  girl,  —  heard  my  story,  and  let  me  in.  I 
told  her  to  tell  the  mistress  that  I  should  be  up  suirs  after 
examining  matters  in  the  basement ;  when  she  informed  me 
that  her  master,  Mr.  Bruce,  had  gone  off  travelling  some- 
where, and  that  her  mistress  went  off  the  afternoon  before, 
to  spend  the  night  with  a  lady  friend,  —  perhaps  the  one 


378  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

with  whom  I  had  seen  her  in  the  horse-car,  —  so  I  took 
things  easy;  and  with  a  good  deal  of  joking  and  merry- 
making with  Sarah,  managed  to  go  all  over  the  house,  an* 
flattered  Sarah  with  showing  me  a  great  deal  of  her 
tress's  wardrobe,  which  was  splendid  indeed.  (I  confabs  I 
thought  of  it  with  some  degree  of  envy,  when  I  reUcctt  <1 
what  poor  dresses,  in  comparison,  a  certain  handsome  ami 
honest  woman,  who  was  the  mother  of  my  own  dear  chil- 
dren, was  obliged  to  get  along  with.)  And  better  than  all, 
I  identified,  on  some  unmade-up  dress-patterns,  two  of  what 
I  took  to  be,  and  what  proved  to  be,  of  the  peculiar  cards 
which  Mr.  Redding's  house  attached  to  its  gooda,  with  secret 
cost-marks  in  ink.  I  had  no  difficulty  m.  securing  these 
without  exciting  Sarah's  suspicion,  and  having  made  all  the 
research  I  cared  to,  left  the  house,  net  without,  however, 
taking  a  cosy  lunch  with  Sarah  in  th?  basement,  and  flatter- 
ing her,  to  such  a  degree,  with  the  tyope  of  future  attentions 
from  me,  that  she  agreed  not  ty  say  anything  about  the 
pipe-repairer's  having  been  ther/-.  Finding  a  pair  of  scis- 
sors in  Mrs.  Bruce's  bedroom,  A  had  made  a  few  sly  clip- 
pings from  some  of  the  unra/de-up  goods,  and  encounter- 
ing the  peculiar  silk  dress,  Ranging  in  a  large  closet  with  a 
dozen  more  of  other  styW,  1  had  jokingly  shut  myself  in, 
in  a  frolicsome  way,  with  Sarah,  long  enough  to  make  a 
clipping  from  a  broad  fcem  in  the  inside  of  a  sleeve  of  the 
dress.  I  felt  quite  satisfied  that  Sarah  would  say  nothing 
of  the  Scotchman's  Having  been  there,  for  I  assumed  the 
role  of  a  Scotchman  with  her,  which  was  by  no  means  a 
bad  dodge,  as  Sarah  was  a  North-of-Ireland  lass,  and  no 
Catholic. 

Duly  in  ano  ther  garb,  I  was  at  Mr.  Redding's,  and  told 
him  my  story.  I  took  him  into  his  private  office,  and  told 
him  to  be  perfectly  reticent,  —  to  say  nothing  to  anybody, 
not  even /0  his  partner,  or  to  his  faithful  clerk,  Mr.  PhilHpn, 
when  th/ey  should  have  returned,  until  I  should  see  him 
sixain ;/"  for,"  said  I,  "  the  thief  was  one  of  your  old  clerks, 
and  y.r.  Phillips'a  heart  is  so  kindly  and  soil,  and  he  evi- 


MRS.   BRUCE'S   SURPRISE.  379 

dently  thinks  so  much  of  the  man,  and  will  be  so  overcome 
with  astonishment,  that  his  sympathies  may  become  aroused 
to  the  extent  of  interceding  for  him,  or  giving  him  a  timely 
hint  to  '  clear  out.'  " 

Mr.  Redding  could  not  comprehend  this,  but  promised  to 
obey  me,  upon  my  saying  to  him  that  it  was  better  always 
that  there  should  be  just  as  few  to  keep  a  secret  as  possi- 
ble, however  tried  and  trusted  any  might  be. 

I  knew  that  I  should  have  to  take  things  by  storm,  so, 
accompanying  myself  with  a  policeman,  in  the  proper  badge 
and  dress,  I  called  on  Mrs.  Bruce  the  next  day,  and  send- 
ing for  her,  she  came  to  the  parlor,  when  I  told  her  that  I 
had  business  with  her  husband,  and  asked  where  I  could 
find  him.  She  produced  the  card  of  "  William  Bruce, 
Dealer  in  Stocks,  etc.,  64  Wall  Street,"  from  a  little  pile  in  a 
basket  near  at  hand,  which  I  took,  and  rising,  thanked  her, 
and  started  for  the  door,  as  if  about  departing,  my  friend 
doing  the  same ;  but  reaching  the  door,  I  closed  it.  A  slight- 
pallor  had  been  discernible  upon  Mrs.  Bruce's  face,  on  her 
entry  into  the  room,  evidently  caused  by  the  sight  of  a 
policeman,  and  it  deepened  as  I  closed  the  door,  and 
said,  — 

"  Mrs.  Bruce,  I  am  here  with  my  friend,  as  an  officer  of 
the  law,  to  search  your  house.  Your  husband  is  not  what 
his  card  purports  here,  as  you  well  know,  but  he  is  a 
clerk  in  the  employ  of"  —  (naming  Mr.  Redding's  house  )j— 
"  and  is  a  thief.  The  most  of  your  splendid  wardrobe, 
which  I  had  the  pleasure  of  inspecting  in  your  absence 
day  before  yesterday,  is  the  result  of  his  thefts ;  and  I  am 
here  prepared  to  take  possession  of  it  —  preferring  to  do 
so  quietly  rather  than  make  any  noise  in  the  neighbor- 
hood. I  do  not  suppose  that  you  have  a.  guilty  knowledge 
of  his  crimes.  He  probably  does  not  tell  you  of  them,  — 
and  I  have  no  desire  to  do  you  any  harm,  or  him  either,  — 
but  the  firm  must  have  back  their  property,  or  as  much  as 
they  can  get ;  and  as  I  see  you  possess  a  great  deal  of  rich 

15* 


380  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

jewelry,  I  shall  ask  you  to  put  the  most  of  that  into  my 
hands  till  your  husband  can  settle  with  the  firm." 

She  was  perfectly  stupefied  through  all  this ;  declared 
that  she  had  no  belief  that  Mr.  Bruce  was  any  other  man 
than  he  pretended  to  her  to  be ;  said  she  had  had  letters 
from  his  sisters  living  in  Pennsylvania,  and  that  she  be- 
lieved he  was  an  honest  man,  and  would  gladly  give  up  to 
officers  of  the  law  anything  in  her  possession,  if  it  could 
help  him,  to  do  BO. 

The  upshot  of  the  matter  was,  that  several  large  trunks 
left  that  house  that  day,  filled  with  rare  goods  and  wares, 
and  under  the  charge  of  the  Mayor's  clerk  (for  I  had  ar- 
ranged it  with  her  that  she  might  name  anybody  to  take 
charge  of  the  goods).  Sarah  helped  pack  the  trunks,  and 
rendered  us  great  aid,  all  unconscious  that  I  was  the  pipe- 
repairer,  her  quasi-lover,  —  until  just  as  I  was  leaving, 
catching  her  alone,  I  whispered  something  in  her  ear,  which 
brought  her  astoundedly  to  her  senses.  She  clasped  my 
hand  with  a  convulsive  "  squeeze,"  and  looked  unutterably 
into  my  eyes,  quite  as  tragically  as  a  fashionable  lover,  with 
her  heart  just  a  little  broken  for  the  twentieth  time  might 
have  done,  and  said  "  Silence  ! "  in  response  to  my  utterance 
of  the  same  word. 

The  goods  were  taken  to  a  proper  place  of  deposit,  and 
Mr.  Redding  was  sent  for,  and  succeeded  in  identifying 
some  of  them  as  surely  having  been  in  his  store,  —  the  un- 
macle-up  ones  in  particular,  —  and  a  peculiar  shawl,  of  great 
value,  only  three  of  which  his  house  had  imported,  and  he 
knew  where  the  other  two  had  been  sold.  Mr.  Redding 
was  very  anxious  to  have  me  proceed  at  once  to  unmask 
the  clerk ;  but  I  told  him  that  I  preferred  to  await,  for  some 
reasons,  till  the  return  of  his  partner,  and  that  just  as  soon 
as  lie  returned  I  wished  him  to  send  me  word,  and  a  car- 
riage to  take  me,  and  say  nothing  at  all  to  his  partner  till  I 
arrived.  Two  days  elapsed  and  the  message  came.  I  was 
fortunately  at  home,  and  took  the  carriage  instantly,  and 
was  off  for  the  house.  1  found  that  the  partner  and  Mr. 


A    "TELLING"  ANNOUNCEMENT.  383 

Phillips  had  returned  but  an  hour  before  from  a  very  suc- 
cessful trip  to  Cincinnati,  and  Mr.  Redding  and  they  were 
in  the  counting-room  congratulating  themselves  on  their 
success. 

"  Well,  Mr.  Redding,"  said  I,  "  I  suppose  it  is  time  to  tell 
you  my  story.  I  am  ready  —  " 

"  Stop,"  said  he ;  "  and  turning  to  his  partner  and  Mr. 
Phillips,  he  said,  "  I've  some  good  news  to  tell  you,  also. 
Our  friend  here  has  been  successful  at  last,  and  discovered 
the  thief,  and  we've  got  back  many  of  the  goods.  Go  on, 
and  tell  us  the  story,  for  I  don't  know  yet  myself  who  the 
thief  is." 

The  partner  and  Mr.  Phillips  looked  in  wonder  into  our 
and  each  other's  eyes,  and  simultaneously  said,  "  Yes,  yes, 
let's  hear ;  and  first,"  said  Mr.  Phillips,  "  let  us  hear  the 
scoundrel's  name,  if  you  have  it,  and  then  the  rest  of  the 
story." 

"  Ah,  yes,  sir,"  said  I,  "  that  is  the  point  first.  His  name, 
Mr.  Phillips,  is  '  William  Bruce,  dealer  in  stocks,  etc.'  (so 
his  card  says),  <  64  Wall  Street.' " 

Mr.  Redding  and  the  partner  looked  confused  at  the  an- 
nouncement (for  I  had  told  Mr.  Redding  that  it  was  "  an 
old  clerk  "  of  his),  and  Mr.  Phillips,  for  a  second,  looked 
confused  for  another  reason,  which  confusion  was  somewhat 
deepened,  when  I  turned  directly  upon  him,  and  said,  — 

"  But  Mr.  Bruce  has  an  alias,  another  name,  and  that  is 
Mr.  Charles  Phillips;  and  you,  sir,  are  the  scoundrel  you 
inquired  for ! " 

Phillips  turned  pale  as  a  ghost,  and  tried  to  say  some- 
thing, but  his  voice  failed. 

"  Mr.  Phillips,"  said  I,  "  the  house  in  19th  Street  has  de- 
livered up  its  treasures.  They  are  all  in  my  possession, 
together  with  your  mistress's  pearls,  diamonds,  and  watches, 
and  everything  valuable  which  she,  as  your  '  wife/  would 
permit  me  and  the  officer  to  take,  and  you  are  now  my 
prisoner,  without  the  slightest  possibility,  on  your  part,  of 
escape  from  the  full  penalties  of  the  law ;  and  now  I  propose 


384  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

to  send  a  carriage  at  once  for  •  Mrs.  Bruce.'  She,  1  am 
sure,  don't  know  of  your  guilt,  and  would  be  happy  to 
encounter  her  returned  husband  here  in  the  person  of  Mr. 
Charles  Phillips,  the  time-old,  confidential  clerk  of  this 
hon  « 

Phillips  reached  out  his  hands  imploringly  to  me,  and 
begged  that  1  would  not  send  for  "  Mrs.  Bruce,"  —  said  he 
was  justly  caught,  and  was  ready  to  confess  all,  without 
our  going  to  the  trouble  of  a  trial,  and  then  commenced 
crying  like  a  girl  —  hysterically. 

The  astonishment  of  Mr.  Redding  and  his  partner  can 
better  be  imagined,  perhaps,  than  portrayed  here.  I  never 
saw  such  a  change  come  over  a  man  as  that  which  Mr. 
Redding  evinced.  All  his  old  strength  seemed  to  come 
back  to  him  at  once.  He  was  inflexible  and  severe.  He 
said  but  few  words,  and  these  always  to  the  purpose.  His 
disgust  for  Phillips  was  something  sublime.  "  0,  you  pious 
hypocrite  !  "  said  he  ;  "  you  d — est  of  all  •  whited  sepul- 
chres '  that  ever  disgraced  our  common  humanity  !  I  am 
more  angry  that  I  have  been  so  deceived  by  your  pious 
villain*,  than  for  all  the  anxiety  and  sickness  you  have 
brought  upon  me.  But,  in  your  own  pious  cant,  as  you 
have  meted  it  to  others,  *  so  shall  it  be  meted  unto  you/ 
you  thief,  libertine,  and  saintly  class-leader ! " 

Mr.  Redding's  partner,  on  the  other  hand,  was  differently 
affected.  He  cried,  and  said  to  Phillips,  "  O,  Charles  Phil- 
lips, how  could  you  ?  I  know  you  must  have  had  dreadful 
temptations.  It  was  all  that  woman :  she  spurred  you  on." 

Phillips  was  silent  for  a  moment ;  and  I,  who  believed 
the  woman  innocent  of  any  knowledge  of  his  crimes,  waited 
anxiously  to  hear  what  he  would  say  in  reply ;  and  the  hard- 
ened man  had  the  magnanimity  to  not  shield  himself  behind 
the  woman,  but  said,  "  O,  no ;  she  knows  nothing  of  my 
guilt.  She  has  not  prompted  me  to  it  directly,  but  it  *.\;i-; 
to  support  and  to  please  her  that  I,  without  her  knowl- 
edge, pursued  my  career  of  crime.  I  am  the  wickedest 
•whited  sepulchre,'  as  Mr.  Redding  calls  me,  that  ever 


VARIOUS  CHANGES.  385 

walked  Broadway,  or  disgraced  the  inside  of  a  church. 
But  I  have  got  my  punishment,  in  part,  now,  and  I  am 
ready,  if  you  demand  it,  to  suffer  the  penalties  of  the  law  ; 
but  for  my  wife's  and  children's  sake,  I  could  wish  that  I 
could  compromise  with  you,  and  go  away  faom  New  York 
forever."  (His  family  resided  in  Brooklyn.) 

To  cut  the  tale  short,  I  will  only  add,  that  Mr.  Redding 
unbent,  in  the  course  of  a  day  or  two,  sufficiently  to  let 
Plnllips  off,  on  his  promise  to  go  at  once  to  New  Orleans, 
where  he  had  relations,  and  never  show  his  face  again  in 
New  York. 

The  goods  were  returned  —  made  and  unmade  dresses, 
and  all ;  and  the  jewelry  amounted  to  nearly  enough  to 
cover  the  best  estimate  of  the  losses  which  we  could  make. 
Phillips  made  a  full  confession  of  how  he  did  things.  He 
was  sly  and  wily,  and  easily  abstracted  such  goods  as  he 
desired,  anj^  doing  them  up  himself,  sent  them  off  by  the 
porter,  when  sending  out  other  packages.  One  of  the  por- 
ters remembered  to  have  gone  many  times  with  packages 
for  Mr.  or  Mrs.  William  Bruce ;  and  he  also,  he  said,  sent 
packages  to  various  hotels,  to  impossible  names,  and  marked 
on  the  corner,  "  To  be  called  for ;  "  and  being  able  to  de- 
scribe the  goods,  if  any  query  arose  as  to  the  propriety  of 
giving  the  package  to  him,  always  succeeded  in  getting 
it.  It  was  thus  he  managed. 

The  house,  at  my  suggestion,  very  generously  furnished 
Mrs.  Bruce  with  three  months'  support,  out  of  compliment 
to  her  giving  up  the  goods  Avithout  resistance,  and  in  order 
to  give  her  time  to  turn  about  and  find  something  to  do ; 
for,  though  unmarried,  by  legal  formula,  to  Phillips,  as  Mr. 
Bruce,  she  supposed  herself  his  legal  wife  under  the  laws 
of  the  State,  and  was  by  no  means  a  bad  woman.  Indeed, 
she  was  a  good  woman  at  heart ;  and  after  in  vain  trying  to 
get  together  a  little  private  school,  as  the  widow  of  William 
Bruce,  —  for  she  insisted  on  being  called  Mrs.  Bruce,  — 
she  turned  to  dressmaking,  and  did  very  well ;  and  being 
a  .fine-looking,  indeed,  a  showy  woman,  succeeded,  in  the 


386  KNOTS    UNTIED. 

course  of  two  years  after  Phillips's  flight,  in  winning  the 
affections  of  a  much  older  man  than  Phillips,  but  a  wealthy 
and  honest  one ;  and  was  duly,  and  this  time,  with  much 
ceremony,  married. 

1  did  not  toeet  Sarah  Crogan  again  for  over  five  years 
from  the  time  I  last  saw  her  at  19th  Street ;  but  she  had 
not  forgotten  the  Croton  Water  Company's  man.  She  h;i<l 
married  meanwhile;  but  she  vowed  that  it  came  "jiare 
breakin'  her  heart,  so  it  did,"  when  she  discovered  that  the 
"  bould  officer  of  the  law  "  was  her  sweetheart  of  a  day  or 
two  before,  and  had  but  "  thricked "  her  into  letting  him  go 
all  over  the  house,  "  like  a  wild  rover !  " 


A    FORCED-MARRIAGE    SCHEME 
DEFEATED. 


GOSHF.N,  CONN.  —  A  LADY  STRANGER  THERE  —  A  PILGRIMAGE  TO  GOSHEN, 
VIA  THE  FAR-FAMED  MOUNTAIN  TOWN  OF  I.M  i  II 1  1 1  I.I. THE  BEAUTI- 
FUL WIDOW —  AN  UNPLEASANT  REMINISCENCE  OF  DR.  IVES,  LATK  I118HOP 

OF  NORTH  CAROLINA  MORE  ABOUT  THE  WIDOW SHE  LEAVES   FOR 

NEW   YORK  —  AT   THE   "MANSION   HOUSE,"    LITCHFIELD  — A   MARKED 
CHARACTER    ENCOUNTERED   THERE  —  MR.   "  C.   B.    LE   ROY"  STUDIED 

AND  WEIGHED THE  BEAUTIFUL  WIDOW  AND  LE  ROY  MEET  —  HER  FACE 

DISCLOSES  CONFLICTING  EMOTIONS  MR.  LE  ROY  AND  THE  BEAUTIFUL 

WIDOW,  MRS.   STEVENS,   TAKE  A  WALK  DOWN  SOUTH  STREET,  IX  THE 
"PARADISE   OF  LOAFERS"  —  SYMPATHIES  SILENTLY  EXCHANGED  —  WE 

ALL  START  FOR  THE  "  STATION  " THE  STAGE-COACH  "  TURNS  OVER  " 

THE  AFFRIGHTED  LE  ROY  REVEALS  HIS  MANNERS  —  A  PECULIAR  SCENE 
IN  THE  CARS  —  AT  BRIDGEPORT  I  PRESENT  MYSELF  TO  MRS.  STEVENS  — 

AT  NEW  YORK  AGAIN A  TALE  OF   COMPLICATIONS MRS.  STEVENS  IN 

DEEP  TROUBLE  —  A   FRIEND  OF   HERS   SEEKS  ME  —  REVELATIONS — A 
FEARFUL  STORY  —  A  SECRET  MARRIAGE  AND  UNHAPPY  CONSEQUENCES 

THE  WRETCH  LE  ROY  WANTS  THE  WIDOW'S  MONEY  —  A  TRAP  SET  FOR 

LE  ROY  HE  FALLS  INTO  IT  —  THE  WEDDING  SCENE  DISARRANGED  

THE  WIDOW  SAVED,  AND  THE  INTENDED  FORCED  MARRIAGE  DEFEATED. 

IN  the  summer  of  185-,  I  had  occasion  to  visit  my 
brother,  who  was  a  clerk  in  a  wholesale  grocery  store 
of  one  Lyman,  on  Water  Street,  I  think,  and  who,  being 
consumptively  inclined,  had,  at  Mr.  Lyman's  suggestion, 
and  through  his  kindness,  gone  to  the  town  of  Goshen, 
Litchfield  County,  Connecticut,  to  spend  a  few  weeks  in 
the  genial  family  of  Mr.  Lyman's  father,'  and  taste  the 
bracing  air  of  the  hills  of  Litchfield  County,  so  far-famed. 
So  delighted  was  my  brother  with  his  "  country  home,"  as 
he  called  it,  that  he  wrote  me  as  often  as  once  a  week,  and 
sometimes  twice,  varying  his  letters,  in  the  enthusiasm 
with  which  they  were  filled  over  the  mountain  scenery, 

387 


388  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

the  fresh  air,  the  excellent  hunting,  the  rides  and  drives, 
with  now  and  then  a  word  about  a  beautiful,  mysteri- 
ous lady,  supposed  to  be  from  New  York,  and  by  some 
supposed  to  be  a  widow,  —  a  gentle,  sweet,  good  woman, 
—  who  bore  some  grief  or  other  in  her  soul,  as  was  evi- 
dent, he  said,  but  who,  with  excellent  good  sense,  kept 
her  affairs  to  herself,  and  would  not  obligingly  recite  the 
history  of  her  life  to  the  gossiping  villagers  of  that  coun- 
try town,  who,  like  those  of  all  other  towns  away  from  the 
centres  of  business,  and  not  even  on  the  line  of  any  great 
thoroughfare,  "  must  have  something  to  busy  themselves 
about,"  and  therefore  mind  each  other's  business  consid- 
erably. 

Goshen  is  reached  by  stage,  a  common  country  mail 
stage  only,  of  the  cheapest  pattern,  running  up  from  Litch- 
field,  several  miles  north.  Litchfield  itself  being  four  or 
five  miles  from  the  station  on  the  Naugatuck  Railroad,  and 
reached  only  over  a  heavy  and  steep  road,  at  points  almost 
perpendicular  to.  the  horizon,  and  withal  a  dangerous  ride, 
if  the  stage-horses  are  not  kept  perfectly  in  hand.  I  <li<l 
not  know  of  this  road,  and  the  jolting  character  of  the 
stages  from  the  station  to  Litchfield,  and  from  Litchfield  on 
to  Goshen,  or  all  the  alluring  words  of  my  brother's  letters 
might  not  have  seduced  me  into  acceptance,  finally,  of  his 
invitation.  But  I  went  up  to  Goshen,  and  once  there,  in 
the  society  of  my  brother,  and  some  genial  citizens  to 
whom  he  presented  me,  passed  four  or  five  days  of  my 
stolen  vacation  most  pleasantly. 

The  supposed  widow  —  and  who  proved  to  be  one  in 
fact  —  had,  at  the  time  I  arrived  in  Goshen,  ceased  to  be 
talked  about  so  generally  as  before,  had  won  everybody's 
respect  and  kindness,  and  had  taught  the  villagers  one 
good  lesson  —  the  value  of  little,  rather  than  great  curi- 
osity, about  others  and  their  business,  by  her  impenetra- 
ble silence  upon  those  matters  about  which  they  had  no 
right  to  know  anything. 

In  her  daily  promenades  with  her  little  bouncing  girl, 


OF   THE  USES   OF   CHARITY.  389 

of  about  five  years  of  age,  she  passed  by  the  house  where 
1  stopped,  and  one  day,  when  my  brother  and  I  were  taking 
the  air  along  the  public  street,  we  met  her.  My  brother 
—  who  knew  her,  but  not  well  enough  to  arrest  her  in  her 
Avalk,  and  present  me  —  bowed  to  her,  and  on  her  turning 
up  her  face  to  respond  to  his  salute,  I  felt  that  I  had  never 
seen  such  chastened  beauty  before.  There  was  a  slight 
evidence  of  a  present,  or  the  mark  of  a  former  grief  or 
suffering  in  that  rich  face,  which  only  seemed,  however, 
to  add  to  its  beauty,  or  rather  the  soul-beauty  which  beamed 
through  it.  I  felt  as  if  I  would  almost  be  glad  if  that  wo- 
man were  to  suffer  some  dire  calamity,  if  I  could  only  have 
the  privilege  of  relieving  her  from  it. 

Years  before,  I  had  heard  the  late  Dr.  Ives,  formerly 
Episcopal  Bishop  of  North  Carolina,  but  who  had  then  be- 
come a  Roman  Catholic,  lecture  one  night  in  the  old  Tab- 
ernacle, on  Broadway,  New. York.  His  discourse  touched 
upon  charity.  He  said,  among  other  things,  in  substance, 
that  God  made  some  people  miserable  in  order  that  others 
might  cultivate  the  sweet  grace  of  charity  in  their  own 
hearts,  by  administering  to  their  sufferings  !  I  thought  it 
a  monstrous  doctrine,  and  felt  like  throwing  a  book,  which 
I  chanced  to  have  with  me,  at  the  doctor's  head.  But  when 
I  found  myself  imagining  misery  for  that  sweet  woman,  in 
order  that  I  might  abate  it,  the  doctor's  discourse  came 
back  to  memory  Avith  a  new  meaning ;  and,  in  fact,  I  don't 
know  but  I  could  have  seen  a  horse  run  over  her,  break- 
ing an  arm,  if  I  could  have  been  on  the  spot  in  time  to  so 
far  save  her  as  to  prevent  a  probable  imminent  death. 

The  reader  may  well  judge  that  my  emotions  were  not 
of  a  faint  nature,  but  such  as  it  would  be  less  improper  for 
me  to  express  here,  perhaps,  had  I  not  at  that  time  been 
a  married  man,  with  one  of  the  best  of  soulful  wives  at 
home,  longing  for  my  return  "  from  the  country."  But 
strange  thoughts  sometimes  rise  in  the  greedy  souls  of 
men,  and  we  would  love  to  possess,  in  order  to  make  them 
happy,  all  the  good  beings  of  both  sexes  in  the  world. 

23  -* 


890  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

Mrs.  Stevens  —  for  so  we  will  call  her  for  the  sake  of 
a  name — announced  to  the  family,  with  whom  she  was 
stopping  a  day  or  two  before  I  was  to  leave,  that  she  was 
necessitated  to  return  to  New  York  in  a  day  or  two.  The 
limiilywere  astonished,  because  she  had  previously  declared 
her  intention  to  remain  a  month  longer.  Of  course  every- 
body in  the  village  soon  heard  of  her  intended  departure, 
and  all  begged  her  to  stay.  I  was  a  little  surprised ;  but 
I  said  to  my  brother,  "  Her  leaving  so  suddenly  has  some 
connection  with  that  grief  which  we  remarked  in  her  face. 
She'll  probably  go  by  the  same  stage  with  me,  and  I'll 
learn  more  of  her." 

The  morning  of  my  departure  came,  and  brother  said  ho 
would  ride  down  to  Litchfield  with  me,  and  we  took  the 
lumbering  stage  together,  confident  that  we  should  "  take 
up  "  Mrs.  Stevens  on  our  way  ;  but  the  stage  passed  the 
house  at  which  she  boarded,  .without  her!  The  driver 
said  she  had  started  out  before  him,  in  a  private  wagon, 
with  a  neighbor,  who  was  going  to  Litchfield,  and  I  felt 
easier;  that  I  should,  in  short,  still  be  able  to  keep  my 
eye  on  her,  and  learn  her  evidently  mysterious  history, 
and  possibly  yet  have  the  gratifying  opportunity  of  being 
of  service  to  her. 

We  rode  on.  Stage-drivers  in  the  country,  with  their 
two-horse  teams,  have  a  peculiar  pride  in  out-driving  the 
one-horse  vehicles  which  they  may  come  upon  on  the  road, 
and  our  ordinarily  slow  old  driver  became  quite  a  Jehu 
that  morning,  and  drove  past  two  or  three  teams  which 
we  overtook  on  the  way,  one  of  them  being  that  which 
bore  the  beautiful  widow  and  her  no  less  beautiful  child, 
and  we  arrived  in  Litchfield  before  them,  alighting  at  the 
u  Mansion  House,"  the  chief  hotel  of  that  centre  of  country 
aristocracy  —  a  centre  once  of  the  best  talent  in  the  land, 
when  Calhoun.  and  many  other  great  men  of  the  nation, 
were  students  there,  under  such  other  great  men  as  Judges 
Reeve  and  Gould,  of  the  once  famous  Law  School. 

Mrs.  Stevens  had  received  letters  nearly  every  day,  it 


A  NERVOUS  MAN.  391 

was  said,  while  in  Goshen,  and  it  had  been  remarked  that 
she  had  had  letters  as  often  as  every  other  day  from  some- 
body, evidently  a  man,  who  wrote  a  peculiar  hand,  as  the 
superscriptions  showed.  This,  the  family  with  whom  she 
boarded,  and  who  brought  the  letters  from  the  post  office 
to  her,  had  said.  My  brother  had  occasion  to  carry  up 
the  letters  for  that  family  once  or  twice,  and  had  remarked 
the  peculiar  style  of  writing  in  the  address  of  letters  to 
Mrs.  Stevens. 

We  naturally  went  into  the  office  of  the  hotel,  and  brother, 
carelessly  turning  over  the  register,  and  noting  the  arri- 
vals of  the  evening  before,  called  to  me :  "  See  here  — 
here's  a  '  mare's  nest,'  perhaps.  I  would  swear  that  the 
man  who  writes  so  much  to  Mrs.  Stevens  wrote  that 
name,"  said  he,  pointing  to  an  inscription  —  "  C.  B.  Le  Roy, 
New  York,"  —  made  in  a  style  which  it  would  be  almost 
impossible  to  successfully  imitate ;  as  markedly  singular 
as  a  style  of  writing  could  well  be.  "  I  will  swear  it.  What 
do  you  think  ?  "  asked  my  brother. 

"  Why,  nothing,  only  that  Mr.  Le  Roy  is  here,  and  that 
his  coming  accounts  for  the  sudden  departure  of  Mrs. 
Stevens.  We  must  get  a  view  of  him,"  I  said. 

I  had  hardly  uttered  the  words,  before  a  man  entered 
the  room,  and  said  to  the  young  man  behind  the  desk  of 
the  office,  — 

"Is  not  that  Goshen  stage  behindhand  this  .morning? 
I  thought  it  was  to  arrive  a  half  hour  ago." 

"  Yes,  sir,  'tis  a  little  late  this  morning,  but  it  has  come," 
replied  the  young  man. 

"  Come?  "  exclaimed  the  man  ;  "  and  whom  did  it  bring  ?  " 

"  Those  two  men  only,"  said  the  clerk.  The  man  in- 
quiring was  a  dark-complexioned,  black-whiskered  fellow, 
dressed  a  little  outre,  in  a  dandy-sort  of  style,  had  a  half- 
professional  look,  but  something  very  hard  in  the  muscles 
of  his  cheek.  He  was  evidently  a  little  vexed  at  the 
stage's  having  brought  no  other  freight,  and  a  little 
nervous  withal;  and  when  in  one  of  those  spasms  of 


392  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

nervousness  in  which  men  do  this  or  that,  or  what  not, 
without  consciousness,  he  raised  his  hat  from  his  head.  I 
saw  in  him  the  imperious,  heartless  wretch,  who  could  do 
anything  which  his  baseness  might  chance  to  incline  him 
to.  He  could  play  the  merciless  tyrant — if  need  were, 
cold-blooded,  and  without  a  pulae  of  sympathy  for  any  suf- 
fering: and  I  saw  more.  That  head  was  one  never  to  be 
forgotten  in  its  singular  shape ;  a  head  that  sends  a  thrill 
of  disgust  through  one ;  and  I  at  once  saw  that  "  C.  B. 
Le  Roy  "  (for  I  was  sure  the  man  before  me  was  the  man 
who  had  made  the  entry  in  the  strange  handwriting),  was 
no  other  than  a  vory  wicked,  low-lived  lawyer,  of  whom 
I  had  had  occasion  to  know  something ;  but  the  name  Le 
Roy  was  assumed.  At  last  the  wagon  came,  and  Mr.  "  Le 
Roy  "  was  on  the  piazza  in  time,  having  been  pacing  the 
hall,  evidently  making  up  his  mind  to  do  something,  he 
knttfv  not  what  —  something  desperate,  perhaps ;  and  he 
bounded  across  the  "  walk  "  in  front  of  the  house,  reached 
out  his  hand  to  Mrs.  Stevens,  caught  the  little  girl  in  his 
arms  first,  and  handed  Mrs.  Stevens  to  the  ground. 

I  happened  to  be  watching  the  scene.  The  lady's  face, 
on  which  for  a  moment  was  a  forced  smile,  betrayed  terri- 
bly conflicting  emotions  in  her  soul,  as  she  passed  into  the 
hotel  parlor  behind  Le  Roy,  who  led  the  little  girl  play- 
fully by  the  hand. 

"  That  Le  Roy  is  a  villain,"  said  I  to  my  brother  ;  "  and 
that  woman  is  in  some  way  in  his  power.  .  There  is  no  at- 
traction between  them.  She  hates  him.  But  he  has  her 
in  his  grasp.  If  it  were  not  that  the  Goshen  people  think 
they  know  she  has  not  much  money,  I  should  believe  that 
he  either  has  funds  of  hers  in  his  possession,  or  that  he  is 
doggedly  persisting  in  wringing  them  from  her." 

"  O,  no,  brother,"  replied  my  brother.  "  You  detectives 
are  always  looking  out  for  evil.  I  don't  like  that  scamp's 
looks  myself.  I  guess  he's  a  bad  fellow  ;  but  why  not 
put  the  most  natural  construction  upon  the  matter;  that 
is,  that  the  fellow  is  in  love  with  that  beautiful  woman,  as 


ON   SOUTH   STREET,   LITCIIFIELD.  393 

almost  every  other  man  in  the  world  might  be ;  for  there 
isn't  one  in  ten  thousand  like  her ;  and  that  she,  like  thou- 
sands of  other  women,  loves  a  scamp.  They  have  met 
here  evidently  by  appointment.  He's  going  to  take  her 
home." 

"  But  didn't  you  see  how  she  looked?  "  I  asked. 

"  Yes  ;  but  she's  a  prudent  woman;  wasn't  going  to  ex- 
hibit her  affection  outdoors,  where  sho  might  be  discov- 
ered by  a  dozen  ;  besides,  that  neighbor  who  brought  her 
might  have  an  unpleasant  story  to  tell.  I  know  him  and 
he's  as  gossipy  as  an  old  woman ;  she  knows  him,  too,  of 
course." 

"But  my  opinion  is  formed,  brother,"  said  I.  "I  shall 
keep  an  eye  on  them,  and  I'll  let  you  know  in  time,  all 
about  it.  I  haven't  told  you  yet  that  I  know  that  scamp. 

I  detest  him.  He  is  no  less  than ;  "  but  my  brother 

chanced  not  to  have  heard  of  him,  and  so  the  conversation 
dropped  for  the  moment. 

We  were  obliged  to  wait  for  the  stage  to  the  station  for 
some  two  hours  ;  and  Mr.  Lo  Roy  and  Mrs.  Stevens  sallied 
out  with  the  little  girl,  to  enjoy  the  fine  air,  perhaps,  of 
the  morning,  and  sauntered  down  "  South  Street,"  so  I 
think  it  is  called ;  a  fine  broad  avenue,  lined  with  beauti- 
ful elms,  and  on  which  are  many  of  the  residences  of  the 
principal  "  nabobs  "  of  that  old  town  of  Litchfield,  which 
somebody  has  facetiously  termed  "  The  Paradise  of  Loaf- 
ers "  —  elegant  ones.  In  summer,  many  people  from  cities, 
far  and  near,  spend  weeks  and  months  at  Litchfield ;  and 
my  brother  and  I  followed  along  after  Le  Roy  and  Mrs. 
Stevens,  for  I  was  bound  to  study  him  then  and  there  as 
much  as  possible.  We  noticed  that  all  of  the  promenaders 
who  were  coming  in  the  opposite  direction,  —  and  there 
were  several  out  that  morning,  —  gazed  upon  Mrs.  Stevens 
with  expression  of  wonder  at  her  beauty ;  and  then  seemed 
to  look  from  her  to  her  attendant  with  shrugs  of  the 
shoulders  and  a  leer  of  the  eyes,  as  they  instinctively  read 
his  true  character. 


394  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

There  is  a  magnetism  about  the  coarser  villains,  a  some- 
thing indescribable  and  individual  too,  not  of  the  same 
kind  and  degree  in  all,  which  discloses  their  real  nature, 
however  much  they  may  try  to  hide  it.  As  well  might  a 
short  man  hope  to  appear  tall.  But  the  great,  successful 
villains,  the  keen  men,  who  succeed  by  their  genius,  and 
not  so  much  by  force,  constitute  another  class  ;  genial, 
affable,  often  very  delicate  and  refined  in  their  appear- 
ance, attractive  in  short,  especially  to  women.  Indeed, 
they  seem  to  work  a  spell  over  nearly  every  woman  they 
meet.  Le  Roy  was  one  of  the  coarser  class,  whose  villa- 
nous  natures  the  tailor's  art  cannot  hide,  however  neatly 
they  may  be  dressed, —  and  he  was  much  adorned  that 
day. 

We  followed  on  behind  Le  Roy  and  Mrs.  Stevens  at  a 
respectful  distance.  Occasionally  Le  Roy  cast  a  glance  be- 
hind ;  but  we  were  occupied  with  our  own  fun  and  laughter, 
or  were  busily  engaged  looking  at  this  or  that  place,  or 
distant  scene,  whenever  he  did  so.  The  conversation  be- 
tween him  and  her  was  apparently  one  of  an  intense  na- 
ture, he  gesticulating  considerably,  in  a  forcible  manner, 
and  I  noticed  that  when  she  turned  up  her  face  to  look  at 
him,  as  she  did  when  evidently  answering  some  question 
of  his,  there  was  visible  a  painful  expression  of  fear  of 
something,  and  I  was  sure  it  must  be  of  him. 

She  kept  a  little  space  between  herself  and  him,  lead- 
ing her  child  on  the  side  nearer  him  or  when  the  child  at 
times  ran  on  before,  I  observed  that  she  "  sidled  "  away 
from  him,  as  if  too  near  approach  were  pollution.  I  thought 
her  manifestations  unmistakable;  and  there  was  in  his 
actions  something  which  was  as  readily  translatable,  to 
the  extent,  at  least,  that  he  felt  he  had  an  important  victim 
in  his  power ;  and  so  he  had,  as  the  sequel  proved ;  but  not 
so  surely  as  he  thought  —  the  villain  1 

Le  Roy  and  Mrs.  Stevens  continued  their  walk  far  down 
the  street,  and  turned  about  to  go  back.  I  said  to  my 
brother,  "  Engage  his  eyes  as  we  meet,  and  I  will  study 


"A   WHEEL   WITHIN   A    WHEEL."  395 

her  face."  Soon  we  met.  Brother  stared  him  so  directly  in 
the  face  as  to  secure  his  whole  attention.  He  seemed  to 
wince,  my  brother  said  ;  and  I  looked  into  the  face  of  Mrs. 
Stevens,  —  how  beautiful!  —  and  I  was  conscious  that  I 
must  have  expressed  a  deep  sympathy,  for  I  felt  it.  Some- 
thing told  me  that  she  felt  it,  too.  There  was  a  slight 
flush  upon  her  cheek,  and  a  kindly,  prayerful  look  in  her 
eye,  like  one  needing  sympathy,  and  we  passed  each  other. 

"  You  are  right,"  said  my  brother,  as  we  got  well  past ; 
"  that  man  is  a  villain,  without  doubt.  I  don't  think  it  is 
love,  or  even  a  desire  to  possess  that  woman  for  himself, 
which  moves  him ;  there's  a  '  wheel  within  a  wheel,'  here 
somewhere." 

1  asked  my  brother  to  describe  to  me  minutely  then  the 
looks  of  the  villain  as  we  passed  him,  for  I  had  half  a  fear 
that  he  might  suspect  we  were  watching  him.  But  from 
what  my  brother  said,  I  concluded  that  the  fellow  was  not 
suspicious  of  us.  They  returned  to  the  hotel  in  due  time. 
He  dogged  her  every  step,  and  she  kept  aloof  from  him 
as  much  as  possible.  Finally  the  time  to  depart  came,  and 
we  took  the  stage  together,  my  brother  bidding  me  good 
by,  shaking  my  hand  with  a  firm  grasp,  just  as  the  stage 
started,  and  saying,  — 

"  I  hope  you  will  have  the  best  success." 

There  was  a  fervor  in  his  tone,  coming  from  his  good 
heart,  which  strengthened  me,  and  moved  me  to  stronger 
resolves  than  ever  to  ferret  out  the  iniquity  which  I  knew 
Le  Roy  must  be  engaged  in. 

Mrs.  Stevens  took  the  back  seat,  with  her  child  next  to 
her,  and  Le  Roy  crowded  in  at  the  other  end  of  it ;  and 
although  there  were  only  another  man  and  myself  as 
passengers  besides,  I  took  the  front  seat,  facing  them,  in 
order  to  have  opportunity  tonstudy  them  as  quietly  as 
possible. 

Le  Roy  attempted  conversation  at  various  times.  The 
lady  answered  him  in  monosyllables  —  not  inclined  at  all 
to  carry  on  the  conversation.  She  seemed  to  me  to  be 


396  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

hopeless ;  looked  like  one  who  would  rather  not  be  than 
to  be,  and  quite  frequently  looked  down  into  her  child's 
eyes  with  gleams  of  evident  pity,  and  would  then  turn 
away  her  head,  and  express,  what  I  took  to  be,  despair. 

An  unfortunate  circumstance  took  place  just  as  we  had 
passed  a  few  rods  down  the  ridge  of  the  great  hill,  or 
mountain,  which  divides  Litchfield  from  "  Litchfield  Sta- 
tion." There  had  been  a  terrible  shower  the  day  before, 
—  one  of  those  sudden  rains,  which  come  on,  gathered  up 
by  a  fierce  wind,  and  pour  down  in  torrents.  The  road 
was  badly  gullied,  and  men  were  there  repairing  it,  hav- 
ing scraped  great  heaps  of  earth  into  the  road,  not  yet 
spread. 

"  Can  I  get  by  ?  "  asked  the  driver  of  the  coach  of  some 
of  them. 

"  Yes,  go  ahead ;  Seymour's  team  just  went  along." 

The  driver  pushed  on,  not  checking  his  horses  sufficient- 
ly, and  coming  upon  a  heap  in  which  was  concealed  a  large 
stone,  the  stage  toppled,  trembled  for  a  second,  and  we 
went  over,  amidst  the  screams  of  Mrs.  Stevens  and  her 
child,  and  the  affrightened  groan,  "  0,  O,"  in  a  mean,  cow- 
ardly voice  of  Le  Roy.  There  was  a  momentary  plunging 
of  the  horses  and  dragging  of  the  stage.  The  men  on 
the  road  were  at  the  coach  in  a  moment.  The  stage  had 
fallen  over  on  the  side  on  which  Mrs.  Stevens  sat,  and  Le 
Roy  was  stepping  on  her  in  his' attempt  to  get  himself  up- 
right, without  an  apparent  particle  of  consciousness  of  her 
presence.  Being  thrown  on  my  knees,  I  pushed  him  up- 
ward with  my  hands,  saying,  — 

"You'll  kill  this  lady,  and  her  child  "  (who,  fortunately, 
was  lying  back  of  her  mother,  out  of  harm's  way,  how- 
ever) ;  "  why  don't  you  take  care,  sir,  what  you  are 
doing?" 

The  brutal  eyes  of  the  man  looked  at  me  with  wrath. 

"  I'll  mind  my  own  business,  sir,"  said  he,"  without  your 
interference  !  "  I  pushed  him  up  still  harder,  and  looked 
at  the  same  instant  into  the  beautiful  suffering  face  of  Mrs. 


A  WORD   IN   PRIVATE.  399 

Stevens.     She  gave  me  a  knowing  look,  as  her  face  was 
suffused  with  contempt  for  the  brutal  remark  of  Le  Roy. 

In  aiding  her  to  get  out  of  her  painful  position,  which  I 
did  as  soon  as  Le  Roy  was  out  of  the  way,  I  saw  that  I 
had  won  her  respect,  and  I  thought,  too,  something  of  her 
confidence.  The  stage  was  uprighted,  and  went  on  to  the 
station  safely  enough,  where  I,  alighting  first,  gave  her 
my  hand  to  help  her  out,  and  took  out  her  little  girl ;  and  at 
once,  with  a  bow,  and  steady  look  in  the  face,  of  that  sym- 
pathy I  felt,  turned  away,  for  I  saw  that  Le  Roy  was  an- 
gry, and  I  thought  he  would  vent  his  anger  upon  her.  I 
kept  out  of  his  sight  till  they  had  taken  a  car  of  the  train 
which  now  came  down  the  road,  and  going  into  the  rear 
of  the  same  car,  arid  on  the  opposite  side,  where  I  could 
see  her  face  to  advantage,  took  my  seat  a  little  in  the 
rear. 

Much  did  Le  Roy  try  to  talk  ;  but  Mrs.  Stevens  was  not 
to  be  provoked  into  much  conversation.  The  little  girl, 
who  sat  in  the  seat  before  them,  and  facing  them,  —  her 
seat  having  been  turned  back,  —  was  constantly  looking 
at  me ;  and  at  my  distance  I  got  up  a  childish  "  flirtation  " 
with  her,  which  seemed  to  annoy  Le  Roy.  He  looked 
back  several  times  o'nly  to  find  me  smiling,  and  tried  to 
smile,  or  pretended  to,  himself;  but  such  a  man  can  never 
smile  warmly.  We  arrived  at  Bridgeport,  where  we  had 
to  tarry  but  a  short  time,  —  half  an  hour,  perhaps,  —  be- 
fore taking  the  New  York  train. 

I  saw  that  Le  Roy  had  gone  out,  probably  to  get  a 
strong  drink  at  some  saloon,  opposite  the  depot,  there  ;  and 
I  entered  the  ladies'  room,  and  diverting  the  child  for  a 
moment,  with  some  other  children,  so  as  to  be  able  to 
speak  a  word  to  the  mother,  I  said,  "  Madam,  I  am  a  de- 
tective police  officer.  I  see  that  you  are  in  deep  trouble 
of  some  kind.  I  do  not  wish  to  know  what,  now ;  but 
here  is  my  private  card.  That's  the  number  of  my  resi- 
dence. If  you 'ever  need  aid,  come  to  my  house,  and  if  I 
am  uot  at  home,  see  my  wife,  and  arrange  with  her  as  to 

16 


400  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

where  you  can  find  mo.  I  am  not,  madam,  seeking  busi- 
:  1  will  gladly  serve  you  without  reward." 

"  0,  sir,  I  thank  you  ;  may  be  I  shall  want  you,"  was 
uttered  in  reply,'  in  tones,  accompanied  by  a  look,  too, 
which  told  the  deep  grief  of  her  heart. 

1  had  hardly  time  to  get  away  when  Le  Roy  came  back. 
In  choosing  my  car  for  the  train  to  New  York,  I  watched 
thriu  again,  and  took  the  same  car,  but  failed  to  secure  so 
favorable  a  position,  although  I  kept  them  in  sight. 

Having  given  my  trunk  into  the  hands  of  the  solicitor 
i;>r  the  express  company,  who  passes  through  the  cars 
wliL-n  near  New  York,  I  took  a  carriage,  and  ordered  the 
driver  to  follow  the  one  taken  by  Le  Roy  and  Mrs.  Stevens, 
and  to  keep  at  a  respectful  distance.  We  followed  on ;  at 
last  they  alighted,  Le  Roy  resuming  his  carriage,  and  driv- 
ing on. 

Knowing  now  the  lady's  residence,  it  was  no  trouble  for 
me,  in  a  few  days'  time,  to  learn  her  history,  so  iar  as  gen- 
erally known  to  her  friends.  She  was  a  teacher,  formerly 
from  Vermont,  and  had  married  a  Mr.  Stevens  some  years 
before,  —  a  man  supposed  to  be  rich,  —  the  son  of  a  very 
wealthy  man.  During  her  husband's  life  she  had  been 
well  cared  for.  He  had  gone  abroad  for  some  reason, 
had  died  iu  Europe  something  like  a  year  or  so  before, 
and  she  was,  obviously,  now  comparatively  poor.  This 
was  the  substance  of  all  I  could  learn.  On  my  arrival 
home  that  day,  I  told  my  wife  about  Mrs.  Stevens,  what 
I  had  seen,  etc.  Her  interest  in.  her  became  as  deep 
a,s  mine,  and  often  afterwards,  for  a  long  while,  she  would 
•'  1  wonder  what  has  become  of  that  poor  Mrs. 
Stevens !  " 

The  duties  of  my  calling  constantly  connecting  me  with 
other  people's  miseries,  had,  after  a  lapse  of  a  few  months, 
quite  driven  Mrs.  Stevens  from  my  mind.  As  she  had  not 
sought  me.  I  inferred  that  her  troubles  had  been  settled ; 
and  so  she  had  vanished  almost  from  memory,  when,  one 
day,  on  returning  home,  I  found  that  a  lady  had  been  to 


IN  TEARS.  401 

my  house,  told  my  wife  of  the  sufferings  of  a  Mrs.  Stevens, 
who  had  my  card,  on  which  she  had  written  "  Detective 
officer."  This  woman  knew  that  Mrs.  Stevens  was  in  great 
affliction ;  that  she  had  been  oppressed  for  months,  by  a 
wretched  man  by  the  name  of  Le  Roy ;  that  there  was 
something  wrong;  that  Mrs.  Stevens  was  to  soon  marry 
this  fellow,  although  the  woman  knew  well  enough  that 
she  could  not  and  did  not  like  him  —  in  fact  hated  him,  for 
they  had  overheard  some  words  between  them.  Her  sym- 
pathies were  so  great  for  her  that  she  wanted  somebody 
better  able  than  she,  she  said,  to  find  out  the  trouble,  and 
save  Mrs.  Stevens. 

I  asked  my  wife,  on  her  telling  me  where  this  woman 
lived, —  in  the  same  building  with  Mrs.  Stevens,  —  how 
the  woman  looked,  how  she  was  dressed ;  for  I  was  sur- 
prised at  finding  her  in  that  quarter  of  the  city.  "  0," 
she  said,  "  plainly,  poorly,  but  neatly  dressed  —  looked  like 
a  sempstress."  And  I  at  once  saw  that  misfortune  had 
been  playing  with  Mrs.  Stevens,  she  having  gone  down 
from  a  somewhat  elegant  boarding-house  into  a  respectable 
but  poor  quarter. 

My  wife  had  told  the  lady  that  I  would  look  into  the 
matter ;  and  that  night  I  made  haste  to  visit  her,  calling  on 
the  other  lady  first,  to  find  whether  I  might  obtrude  upon 
other  callers.  I  found  that!  might  call  without  intrusion; 
and  Mrs.  Stevens  expressed  great  pleasure  at  seeing  me. 
After  a  few  words  had  passed,  I  told  her  I  knew  she  was 
in  trouble,  and  asked  her  why  she  had  not  demanded  my 
services,  which  were  ever  ready  for  her. 

"  0,  sir,"  said  she,  "  my  troubles  took  such  a  shape  that 
I  knew  you  could  not* help  me —  nobody  can.  I  am  driven 
on  by  despair ;  but  for  my  child,  I  think  I  should  have 
long  since  committed  the  crime  of  suicide,"  and  the  tears 
streamed  from  her  eyes. 

I  was  BO  convulsed  with  sympathy  that  I  could  hardly 
speak,  but  mustering  as  firm  a  voice  as  I  could,  I  said, 
"  Madam,  have  hope.  There  never  was  a  case  so  desper- 


402  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

ate  yet,  but  some  chance  of  escape  might  be  involved  in  it. 
I  do  not  wish  to  pry  into  your  affairs,  but  I  know  you  are 
suffering  wrongfully,  and  I  could  wish  that  you  might  tell 
me  enough  to  enable  me  to  see  if  I  cannot  help  you  ;  and 
let  me  say  here,  that  I  know  enough  already  to  be  awaro 
that  your  chief  trouble  is  in  some  way  connected  with 
Le  Hoy." 

"  Le  Roy  !  —  do  you  know  him  ?  "  she  exclaimed.  "  Ah, 
I  forget.  You  know  him,  of  course  ;  but  do  you  know  any 
more  about  him  than  travelling  with  him  that  day  —  and 
what  do  you  know  ?  " 

"Yes,  I  know  him  as  a  miserable  villain,  —  heartless  and 
coarse." 

"  I  think  you  must  know  him,  for  he  is  all  that  you  call 
him.  That  he  is  heartless  and  coarse,  repulsive  and  tyran- 
nical, is  true.  I  do  not  know  that  he  is  criminal ;  but  I 
fear  he  is.  Do  you  know  ?  " 

"  Yes,  he  is ;  as  such  a  nature  could  not  well  otherwise 
be  —  " 

"  0,  then  my  condition  is  wofse  than  I  thought,"  said 
she,  sobbing. 

I  consoled  her  all  I  could,  and  in  the  result  induced 
her  to  acquaint  me  with  her  story,  —  and  it  was  a  fearful 
one,  in  many  respects,  —  which  I  shall  not  here  relate : 
bad  enough,  as  you  will  see,  in  those  which  I  shall  tell.  It 
was,  in  brief,  this.  %  She  had  married  privately  the  son  of  a 
wealthy  man,  who  had  intended  that  his  son  should  form 
an  alliance  with  the  daughter  of  an  old  schoolmate  of  his, 
a  wealthy  New  York  merchant,  residing  in  Brooklyn. 
But  the  young  man  could  conceive  no  affection  for  this 
young  lady  —  revolted;  declared  that  he  had  a  right  to 
choose  a  wife  for  himself.  His  father,  who  had  intended  to 
set  him  up  in  business  with  a  large  capital,  being  angry 
with  his  son's  refusal  to  even  attempt  the  alliance  he 
desired  for  him,  turned  him  off  with  only  a  comparatively 
small  amount  of  money,  and  threatened  that  if  he  ever 
married  anybody  else  but  the  girl  he  desired  him  to  marry, 


CLOSE  CALCULATIONS.  403 

he  would  cut  him  off  in  his  will.  The  son,  falling  in  love 
with  the  lady  in  question,  married  her  privately ;  and  it  so 
chanced  that  Le  Roy,  happening  to  be  at  the  minister's 
house,  calling  on  a  servant  girl,  at  the  time  of  the  marriage, 
was  called  in  with  the  girl  as  a  witness.  The  son,  Mr. 
Stevens,  had  gone  to  Europe,  and  died  there.  But,  just 
before  his  death,  his  father  had  died  intestate,  and  the  son's 
child  became  entitled  to  her  part  —  a  fourth,  if  I  rightly 
recollect  —  of  a  large  estate  ;  but  there  was  no  evidence 
of  the  marriage  save  that  which  Le  Roy  could  furnish  ;  as 
the  servant  girl  had  gone  nobody  knew  where.  An  adver- 
tisement in  the  Herald  had  failed  to  find  her, —  she  might 
be  dead, —  and  the  minister  who  performed  the  ceremony 
could  not  identify  Mrs.  Stevens.  But  Le  Roy,  when 
hunted  up  by  Mrs.  Stevens,  recognized  her,  and  seeing 
here  a  chance  to  make  money,  —  she  having  unfortunately 
told  him  why  she  needed  his  testimony, —  refused  to  swear 
to  his  signature  unless  she  would  marry  him,  pretending 
at  once  to  fall  violently  in  love  with  her.  And  the  poor 
woman  had  gone  on  resisting  his  offer  of  marriage,  till  at 
last  driven  to  almost  distraction,  and  mourning  over  the 
future  of  her  child,  she  had  consented,  for  her  sake,  to 
marry  the  wretch.  She  had  told  him  that  she  would  try 
to  become  guardian  for  her  child  in  the  Surrogate's  Court, 
and  would  save  all  she  could  from  her  allowance  from  year 
to  year  for  him.  But  the  father  having  died  first,  and  the 
son  having  right,  therefore,  to  a  large  amount  of  personal 
property,  which  would  become  in  good  part  his  wife's,  if 
the  estate  should  happen  to  be  so  divided  that  she  got 
other  than  real  estate  for  his  share,  the  scamp  saw  that 
he  would  likely  have  the  handling  of  the  funds,  so  deemed 
that  he  might  possibly  induce  her  to  give  all  to  him,  to  get 
rid  of  him  —  would  not  yield  the  point.  Marry  him  she 
should,  or  she  and  her  child  might  starve. 

At  last,  having  been  constantly  dogged  by  him  in  the 
city,  —  he  having  written  her  letters  almost  daily  while  at 
Goshen,  —  having  followed  her  as  far  as  Litchfield,  and 


404  KNOTS    UNTIED. 

written  her  a  letter  compelling  her  to  return  to  the  city, 
that  lie  might  have  more  immediate  communication  with 
her,  she,  to  save  herself  from  poverty,  and  from  the  greater 
motive  of  preserving  her  child  from  want,  and  to  secure 
her  just  rights,  had  consented  to  marry  him  within  a  week. 
Every  day  was  adding  to  her  gloom  and  distress.  She 
loathed  the  man ;  but  she  saw  no  way  out  of  the  trouble 
but  to  marry  him,  privately,  whereupon  he  was  to  go  for- 
ward and  swear  to  his  signature,  his  presence  at  her  mar- 
riage to  Mr.  Stevens,  etc. 

The  widow  cried  bitterly.  I  sympathized  deeply  with 
her.  I  could  see  no  'way  out  of  the  dilemma ;  but  I  reflect- 
ed that  one  might  possibly  be  hunted  out ;  and  I  said  to 
her,  "  Madam,  don't  give  up  hope  till  the  last  minute. 
We've  time  to  work  a  little  yet.  Something  will  turn  up 
to  aid  you  —  be  sure  of  it."  . 

"  0,"  said  she  ;  "  O,  I  hope,  I  pray  there  may  ;  and  — 
yet,  O  my  child  !  my  child  !  —  O,  I  fear  I  am  doomed  !  " 

I  consoled  her  all  I  could,  and  left  her,  agreeing  to  return 
duly.  Getting  out  upon  the  street,  and  taking  a  few  list- 
less steps,  I  conjured  my  brain  for  an  expedient.  At  last 
I  resolved  to  devote  myself  to  the  work  of  freeing  that 
woman  at  all  hazards;  and  instantly  I  had  firmly  fixed  that 
resolve,  I  felt  (for  some  reason  which  is  inscrutable  to  me, 
unless  the  doctrine  of  our  having  "  guardian  angels "  is 
true),  that  a  new  power  of  thought  possessed  me ;  and  I 
seemed  to  see  the  straight  way  out  of  this  difficulty  at 
once ;  and  although  it  did  not  prove  a  way  of  thornless 
roses,  exactly,  I  did  see  it  pretty  clearly  —  for  I  hit  upon 
a  man  who  proved  able  to  give  me  just  such  information  as 
I  wanted ;  and  I  went  straightway  to  my  old  friend,  Jordan 
Williams,  formerly  a  detective,  and  who,  I  thought,  knew 
Le  Roy.  I  told  my  story  in  confidence  to  Williams,  and 
said,  "  Now  if  we  can  manage  in  some  way  to  get  Le  Roy 
into  limbo  for  some  of  his  misdeeds,  we  can  frighten  him 
out  of  this  scheme,  and  make  him  give  the  requisite  testi- 
mony.". 


A  BIT  OF   INGENUITY.  405 

"  Yes,  yes,"  said  Williams,  "and  although  I  am  no  Jesuit, 
yet  if  ever  the  '  end  justified  the  means,'  whatever  they 
are,  it  would  in  this  case.  Le  Roy  is  guilty  of  a  thousand 
crimes,  but  he  has  some  sort  of  influence  with  the  courts 
and  officers,  and  we  could  not  get  him  up  on  any  former 
crime.  He  must  be  guilty  of  a  fresh  one.  Let's  see ;  let 
me  manage  this  part.  They  are  to  be  married  within  a 
week  ?  Well,  I  saw  Le  Roy  day  before  yesterday ;  he 
looked  rather  seedy  for  a  bridegroom.  He  asked  me  then 
if  I  could  loan  him  a  little  money,  which  I  of  course  refused 
to  do.  Ah,  I  have  it ;  he  must  want  a  suit  of  clothes,  and 
other  things  ;  I'll  fall  in  his  way  to-night,  and  if  he  asks  for 
money,  as  he  will,  I  will  give  him  a  check  for  fifty  dollars 
on  my  bank.  I  have  three  thousand  dollars  and  over,  there, 
now.  My  habit  is  to  always  make  figures  (I  hate  to  write 
out  the  full  words,  —  you  know  I  don't  write  over  well),— 
and  then  fill  up  the  blank  with  a  line.  On  the  back  I'll  put 
the  figures  $500.  He'll  see  that,  and  I'll  leave  a  little 
space  after  the  figures  $50,  on  the  face,  for  another 
'  nought.'  I'll  have  a  witness  to  the  size  of  the  draft, 
before  I  hand  it  to  him.  He'll  surely  never  let  such  a 
chance  go.  He'll  want  five  hundred  to  splurge  with  on 
his  bridal  tour,  you  see,  and  he'll  think  he  can  make  it  all 
right  with  me." 

Williams's  ingenious  plan  worked.  Le  Roy  wanted  one 
hundred  dollars.  Williams  declared  he  would  not  let  him 
have  but  fifty  —  he  must  borrow  the  other  fifty  elsewhere ; 
and  he  wrote  out  a  note  for  fifty  for  Le  Roy  to  sign,  paya- 
ble in  ten  days  from  that  time,  as  Le  Roy  wished  it,  and 
gave  the  check  to  him,  having  first  shown  it  to  a  friend, 
who  put  a  private  mark  on  it. 

Le  Roy  fell  into  the  trap.  Next  day  the  five  hundred 
dollars  were  drawn  —  early,  too  ;  for  only  late  in  the  morn- 
ing Williams  went  to  the  bank  to  draw  out  his  deposit,  in 
order  to  learn  whether  the  draft  had  been  presented.  The 
bank,  of  course,  in  rendering  his  account,  debited  him, 
among  other  things,  with  the  five  hundred  dollars,  at  which 


406  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

he  expressed  astonishment  and  indignation,  as  was  his 
right  to  do,  and  refused  to  settle  with  the  bank  that  morn- 
ing, and  they  held  on  to  the  draft  of  course. 

Williams  lost  no  time  in  communicating  with  me,  and 
I  hastened  to  the  widow's ;  told  her  to  be  a  little  more  yield- 
ing to  Le  Roy;  to  put  on  a  more  pleasant  face,  and  to  abide 
the  result,  with  the  assurance  that  she  was  to  be  deliv- 
ered from  the  clutches  of  Le  Roy  at  last ;  giving  her  some 
money  to  assist  her  in  her  distress.  1  advised  her  how 
to  proceed  with  the  arrangements  for  the  marriage  ;  went 
home  and  instructed  my  wife,  who  took  as  much  interest 
in  poor  Mrs.  Stevens's  fate  as  did  I ;  put  her  in  commu- 
nication with  Mrs.  S. ;  and  it  was  finally  arranged  that  the 
wedding  should  take  place  at  a  cousin's  of  mine,  who  oc- 
cupied a  house  in  a  very  respectable  portion  of  the  city, 
and  who,  and  whose  wife,  were  let  into  the  secret  so  far  as 
proper.  Mrs.  Stevens  was  to  represent  this  lady  to  Le 
Roy  as  an  old  friend  of  hers,  whom  she  had  come  across 
of  late,  and  who  was  assisting  her. 

Mrs.  Stevens  was  all  this  while  kept  profoundly  in  the 
dark  as  to  what  course  was  finally  to  be  pursued ;  and  not- 
withstanding she  borrowed  much  confidence  from  my  per- 
fect confidence,  yet  I  could  see  that  she  was  nervous,  and 
feared  a  little  that  after  all  she  might  be  victimized  to 
Le  Roy. 

I  saw  to  it  that  the  legal  portion  of  the  matter  was 
properly  attended  to.  Williams  settled  with  the  bank  un- 
der protest,  alleging  that  the  draft  was  a  forgery,  etc.,  the 
cashier  agreeing  to  identify  Le  Roy  when  called  upon ;  and 
at  the  last  moment  he  was  let  into  the  secret  that  Le  Roy 
was  to  be  arrested  on  the  night  of  the  proposed  wedding, 
and  with  Williams  was  duly  on  hand  at  the  house,  and 
properly  secreted.  Officers,  two  of  them,  were  engaged 
to  follow  Le  Roy,  and  at  a  given  signal  from  me,  were  to 
enter  the  house.  Mrs.  Stevens  had  been  allowed  the 
choice  of  a  minister;  but  the  people  of  the  house  thought 
best  to  secure  the  minister  of  the  church  which  they  at- 


GREAT   CONSTERNATION.  409 

tended.  Le  Roy  came  in  a  carriage  that  evening,  in  great 
style.  He  was  going  to  take  the  next  train  to  Philadel- 
phia, with  his  bride.  He  was  as  well  arrayed  as  the  great 
house  of  Devlin  &  Co.  could  dress  him,  and  had  probably 
borrowed,  or  by  hook  or  by  crook  had  procured  a  valuable 
diamond  pin;  and  looked  like  a — well,  a  polished  scoun- 
drel ;  but  he  could  not  hide  the  intrinsic  villany  of  that 
face.  The  cashier  of  the  bank  was  a  notary  public,  and 
had,  at  my  request,  brought  along  his  seals  and  stamp.  I 
should  add  that  my  cousin  had  invited  in  several  friends,, 
who  came  in  partial  evening  dress,  making  quite  a  lively 
party. 

I  was  flitting  about,  making  myself  generally  useful,  and 
so  disguised  that  Le  Rpy  had  no  notion  who  I  was.  .The 
time  appointed  for  the  ceremony  drew  on.  Poor  Mrs.  8. 
was  in  a  flutter.  Le  Roy  tried  to  sooth  her,  took  her  aside 
and  talked  to  her  a  little  ;  put  her  arm  in  his  ;  looked  very 
proud,  but  a  little  provoked,  as  if  he  feared  that  at  last 
she'd  fail  him  —  faint  away,  perhaps.  The  hour  came,  the 
attendants  began  to  draw  into  order,  and  the  ministerr  too, 
put  on  his  gravity,  asking  that  the  parties  to  be  married 
take  their  place,  and  Le  Roy  stepped  forth  to  lead  up  Mrs. 
S.,  who  sat  at  the  end  of  the  long  parlors.  Full  of  pride  was 
he,  suddenly  to  be  humbled.  As  he  approached  her,  I  cast 
a  glance  at  puzzled  Mrs.  Stevens,  tripped  to  a  side  win- 
dow, gave  the  appointed  signal,  and  the  door-bell  rang  with 
great  fury,  as  I  had  ordered.  All  the  people  present  were 
startled,  and  on  the  qui  vive  to  know  what  such  a  call  could 
mean. 

"  A  fire  somewhere  !  "  "  Is  this  house  on  fire  ?  "  "  0, 
dear !  What  can  it  mean?  "  was  ejaculated,  etc.,  etc. 

Meanwhile  the  servant  had  rushed  and  opened  the  door. 

"  Does  Mr. live  here  ?  "  asked  the  officers. 

"  Yes." 

"  Is  he  in  ?  " 

"  Yes." 

"  We  wish  to  see  him." 
24 


410  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

"  Take  seats  in  this  room,"  said  the  servant.  "  He'll  be 
down  presently.  There's  a  wedding  going  on  up  stairs." 

"  We  can't  wait  —  call  him ;  "  and  the  servant  ran  to  call 
him,  and  the  officers  pushing  on  after  him,  entered  the 
room.  Le  Roy  was  talking  to  his  expected  wife,  and, 
facing  the  door,  I  was  there,  and  giving  the  officers  the 
secret  hint,  they  exclaimed,  — 

"  Our  man,  by  Heavens  1  Mr. (my  cousin),  whoever 

you  may  be,  you  must  pardon  us ;  but  Mr.  Le  Roy,  here 
is  our  prisoner.  Sorry  to  break  up  a  nice  party ;  but,  Le 
Roy"  (proceeding  to  collar  him),  "we've  hunted  you 
out ;  been  after  you  all  day ;  a  pretty  man  to  be  married ; 
better  have  arranged  your  funeral." 

The  ladies  screamed,  and  said,  "  0,  O  !  "  Mrs.  Stevens 
sank  back  upon  a  sofa,  half  fainting  at  the  joy  of  her  de- 
livery, but  not  seeing  yet  how  it  was  to  be  accomplished ; 
and  Le  Roy  stormed  at  the  "  outrage."  "  Villains,"  said 
he,  "  what's  your  charge  ?  —  rascals,  come  to  extort  money, 
I  suppose ;  "  but  his  boastfulness  subsided,  as  one  of  the 
officers  whispered  quite  shrilly  in  his  ear,  "  Williams  is 
after  you  for  the  five  hundred  dollar  forged  check.  We've 
got  you,  and  there's  no  escape." 

The  minister  was  the  most  confused  man  I  ever  saw  — 
quite  lost  his  self-possession.  I  pointed  the  officers  to  a 
room,  whither  they  took  Le  Roy,  whose  astonishment  on 
encountering  Williams  there  cannot  well  be  conceived. 

"  You  villain  !  "  exclaimed  Williams.  "  How  dared  you 
to  abuse  my  kindness  —  you  dog?  You've  no  fool  to  play 
with.  I've  caught  you,  and  at  last  you  shall  suffer  for  your 
crimes  as  you  ought."  A  tap  on  a  door,  leading  into  an  ad- 
joining room,  and  the  cashier  entered. 

"  Who's  that  man?  "  asked  Williams  of  the  cashier,  point- 
ing to  Le  Roy. 

"  Mr.  Le  Roy,  the  man  who  presented  this  check.  The 
teller  was  out,  and  I  occupied  his  place  so  early  in  the 
morning." 

"  And  I,"  said  I,  stepping  up  to  Le  Roy,  and  removing 


IN  CONFESSION.  411 

my  slight  disguise  of  full  whiskers,  revealing  the  side 
whiskers  I  was  accustomed  to  wear,  "  Do  you  know  me?" 
He  did  at  once  recognize  me).  "  What  do  you  think  now 
>f  your  ablility  to  '  attend  to  your  own  business,'  as  on  that 
lay  the  stage  upset  in  Litchfield? — Officers,"  said  I,  take 
way  your  man.  He's  good  for  five  or  ten  years,  if  not 
ifteen,  at  Sing  Sing." 

Le  Roy  turned  pale  —  stammered  out  something,  and 
rat  down  —  saw  he  was  caught.  I  motioned  the  ladies 
r.way  from  the  door,  and  asked  to  be  allowed  to  close  it, 
desiring  the  officers,  too,  and  all  but  Williams,  to  go  into 
other  rooms,  and  closed  the  doors.  "  Le  Roy,"  said  I,  "  I 
am  master  here.  I  understand  the  whole  matter  of  your 
villany  with  that  woman.  You  have  only  one  means  of 
escape.  Here's  a  writing  I  have  prepared  for  you.  I'll 
read  it."  It  was  a  simple  statement  that  he  recognized 
his  signature  to  the  marriage  certificate  of  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Stevens ;  that  he  saw  the  servant  girl  sign  hers  ;  that  he 
was  called  in  as  witness,  being  there  visiting  the  girl ;  that 
he  not  only  saw  her  sign  the  document,  but  that  he  had 
read  many  notes  from  her,  and  knew  her  handwriting,  and 
that  this  signature  was  hers  ;  in  short,  a  succinct  statement 
of  all  the  facts  I  could  get  hold  of  in  the  matter  of  the 
marriage.  "  Sir,"  said  I,  as  I  finished  reading  the  docu- 
ment, "  tell  me  if  that  is  all  true."  He  tremblingly  said, 
"  Yes."  I  opened  the  door,  and  asked  the  cashier  to  come 
in,  in  his  character  as  notary  public ;  got  pen  and  ink  for  Le 
Roy,  and  asked  him  to  put  his  signature  to  the  statement. 
It  was  a  perfect  fac-simile  of  that  subscribed  to  the  mar- 
riage certificate.  The  notary,  at  my  request,  put  him  un- 
der oath,  Mr.  Williams  and  I  having  left  the  room  for  the 
time,  so  that  the  notary  could  properly  state  that  he  ac- 
knowledged the  signature  to  be  made  by  him  without  fear, 
and  not  under  duress,  etc.  The  notary  gave  us  the  signal 
to  return,  and  I  went  into  the  parlor,  found  Mrs.  S.,  and  said, 
"  It  is  done.  He  is  caught.  You  are  saved.  The  prop- 
erty is  yours." 


412  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

She  did  not  faint  away,  as  many  a  woman  might,  though 
she  trembled  with  joy. 

"  Let  me  take  you  before  the  wretch,"  1  said.  "  I  have 
not  done  with  him  yet." 

Mrs.  S.  took  my  arm,  and  accompanied  me.  Entering 
the  room,  I  closed  the  door  behind  me,  only  Williams  and 
the  cashier  being  there,  and  proceeding  to  Le  Roy,  I  said, 
"Your  victim  is  safe,  you  villain  —  and  now  we  have 
but  one  thing  more  for  you  to  do.  You  must  consent  to 
be  handcuffed,  and  taken  to  private  apartments  by  the 
officers,  and  there  kept  'till  to-morrow,  or  you  must  go  to 
the  tombs  at  once.  The  forgery  is  proved  upon  you,  and 
there  is  no  escape  but  one ;  that  is,  go  to  the  surrogate's 
office  to-morrow,  and  swear  to  your  signature,  as  you  have 
done  here.  I  have  taken  the  precaution  to  put  you  on 
your  oath,  and  secure  your  signature  for  comparison  at  this 
time.  You  see  you  are  caught." 

"  I  will,  I  will !  "  said  Le  Roy,  trembling.  He  hated  the 
thought  of  imprisonment.  He  had  suffered  it  once  for 
two  years,  and  nearly  died  of  the  confinement.  "  But 
there's  one  thing  more  yet.  You  must  deliver  to  Mr.  Wil- 
liams, or  the  cashier  here,  whichever  you  please,  all  the 
money  you  have  saved  out  of  the  five  hundred." 

"  1  will,  I  will ! "  said  he,  with  alacrity  ;  and  drawing  his 
wallet,  pulled  forth  a  roll  containing  two  hundred  and 
ninety-five  dollars  of  it,  which  was  given  to  the  cashier, 
who  identified  it,  marked  it,  and  put  it  in  his  pocket. 

Le  Roy  was  immediately  given  into  the  hands  of  the 
officers,  and  taken  to  their  apartments  for  the  night.  We 
paid  his  coachman  his  charge,  and  sent  him  away. 

There  was  rejoicing  in  that  house  that  night,  not  over 
nuptials  consummated,  but  broken  ;  and  a  happier  being 
never  lived  than  seemed  Mrs.  Stevens.  "  Not  only  that 
my  child  is  safe,"  said  she,  "  from  penury  and  starvation, 
but  that  I  have  escaped  the  presence  of  that  loathsome 
man." 

The  cashier  went  home.    Mrs.  Stevens,  Williams,  and  I 


LE  ROY  IN  JAIL.  413 

had  a  conference,  in  which  she  gladly  agreed  to  pay  Wil- 
liams for  his  loss  of  over  two  hundred  dollars,  or  rather 
that  of  the  bank,  for  it  was  the  bank's  in  fact ;  and  we 
dismissed  her,  Williams  consenting  that,  though  we  had 
promised  Le  Roy  nothing,  yet  if  he  went  forward  and  did 
all  he  promised  next  day,  faithfully,  it  would  be  no  great 
crime  to  not  have  him  duly  arrested  and  tried,  consider- 
ing, too,  the  way  in  which  he  was  caught.  But  after  all, 
though,  he  went  forward,  and  did  as  he  agreed,  and  ought 
to  have  done,  we  made  complaint,  and  lodged  him  in  jail, 
where  he  remained  for  some  three  months ;  when,  no  one 
appearing  before  the  grand  jury  against  him,  he  was  re- 
leased, not,  however,  till  I  had  visited  him,  and  given  him 
notice  that  he  must  leave  New  York  forever,  or  we  would 
re-arrest  him ;  and  he  fled,  greatly  to  Mrs.  Stevens's  relief. 
What  became  of  Mrs.  Stevens ;  how  she  became  an  in- 
mate of  my  house  while  the  estate  was  being  settled  ; 
how  happily  she  is  now  living,  and  many  things  which  I 
should  delight  to  relate  regarding  all  this  matter,  have  no 
particular  relation  to  a  detective's  life  and  duties ;  and  so 
I  end  this,  the  really  most  interesting  affair  of  my  life,  with 
the  simple  prayer  that,  if  there  are  in  the  wide  world  oth- 
ers as  horribly  persecuted  as  was  Mrs.  Stevens,  as  happy 
deliverance  may  come  to  them,  as  was  that  to  her. 


THE  MARKED  BILLS. 


A  LITTLE  KEY  BEARING  A  MONOGRAM  SHAPES  THE  DESTINY  OF  AN  INTEL- 
LIGENT MAN  —  HOW  THIS  MAN  CAME  TO  BE  INVOLVED  IN  THE  MATTER 
Ot  WHICH  THIS  TALE  DISCOURSES  —  MY  PARTNER  AND  I  —  FAR-OFF 
MYSTERIES  MAY  SOLVE  NEARER  ONES  —  A  CONSULTATION  —  A  COM- 
MITTEE "  SEEK  LIGHT,"  AND  FIND  CONSOLATION  —  Bl'RGLARIES  AND 
HIGHWAY  BOBBERIES  BY  THE  WHOLESALE  —  MY  PARTNER  LEAVES  FOR 
EUROPE  —  A  TOWN  IN  OHIO  INFESTED  —  A  "  DOCTOR  HUDSON  "  APPEARS 
IN  THE  TOWN  —  HE  MAKES  A  PROFESSIONAL  VISIT  TO  ONE  MR.  PERKINS 
—  A  COLLOQUY ;  SEEKING  LIGHT  —  A  CALLOUS  HAND,  AND  A  CLKW  TO 
MYSTERIES — "DOCTOR  HUDSON"  EXTENDS  HIS  ACQUAINTANCESHIP — 
HE  MAKES  A  NIGHT'S  VISIT  OUT  OF  TOWN,  AND  GETS  WAYLAID  AND 
ROBBED,  BUT  MANAGES  TO  CREATE  THE  FATAL  EVIDENCE  HE  WANTS 
OF  THE  BOBBERS'  IDENTITY  —  A  COUNCIL  OF  PRINCIPAL  CITIZENS  — 
"DOCTOR  HUDSON"  MAKES  A  DISCLOSURE  —  A  SCHEME  LAID  —  A 
"MILITARY  INVESTMENT"  OF  A  DOMESTIC  FORTRESS;  AN  EXCITING 
HOUR  —  BREAKING  INTO  A  HOUSE  AT  MIDNIGHT  AND  SURPRISING  A 
SLEEPER  —  THE  THIEF  LEAVES  TOWN  TO  GO  TO  CINCINNATI  TO  STUDY 
MEDICINE  WITH  "DOCTOR  HUDSON*'  —  A  SUICIDE  —  PURITANIC  MERCI- 
LES8NE88  —  THE  MUSIC  TEACHER'S  INGENIOUS  LETTER  TO  HIS  LADY 

LOVE. 

IT  is  of  an  occurrence,  which  took  place  sevei*  years  ago 
this  very  month  in  which  I  am  writing  this  sketch,  that  I 
propose  to  tell  the  tale  —  at  midnight ;  having  been  unable 
to  sleep  much  of  late,  and  having  now  risen  from  my  bed, 
taken  my  pen,  and  set  myself  at  work,  with  the  hope  that 
some  continuous  mental  labor  may  bring  on  drowsiness  by 
and  by ;  which,  by  the  way,  will  not,  I  trust,  affect  or  infect 
my  narrative. 

Seven  years  ago,  then,  this  month,  my  partner  was  called 
on  to  go  into  his  native  town  in  the  southern  portion  of 
Ohio,  to  assist  in  ferreting  out  the  perpetrators  of  sundry 
highway  robberies,  burglaries,  etc.,  that  were  constantly  tak- 
ing place  there,  and  whom  it  baffled  the  sagacity  of  the  citi- 

414 


THE   MONOGRAM   TELLS   TALES.  415 

zens  of  the  place,  and  several  constables,  deputy  she  rill'-, 
detectives  from  Cincinnati,  and  so  forth,  to  detect.  As  a 
dernier  resort,  the  villagers  had  made  up  a  purse,  and  ap- 
pointed a  committee  to  proceed  to  New  York,  and  wait 
upon  my  partner,  with  the  whole  story  of  the  countless 
robberies,  and  see  if  he  could  not  lay  some  plan  which  should 
prove  successful  in  the  arrest  of  the  villains. 

My  partner  had  left  his  native  place  in  his  sixteenth 
year,  —  a  more  than  usually  bright  boy,  —  had  wandered 
South,  working  out  his  own  fortune  by  slow  degrees ; 
studied  law,  and  been  admitted  to  practice  at  Washington, 
Texas ;  tried  practice  for  a  year  or  so  with  some  success, 
but  disliked  the  profession;  went  to  Galveston;  made 
the  acquaintance  there  of  an  iron-founder  and  machinist 
by  the  name  of  Hunt,  if  I  rightly  recollect,  who,  taking  a 
liking  to  him,  employed  him  in  his  office.  My  partner  hav- 
ing excellent  mechanical  ability,  passed  much  of  his  time 
in  the  work-rooms  of  the  machine  department,  and  became 
quite  a  skilful  operator.  One  day  some  persons  of  foreign 
birth  applied  at  the  machine-shop,  —  as  there  was  no  other 
place  in  Galveston  where  they  could  get  the  work  done, — 
to  have  some  three  or  four  keys  made  after  certain  patterns 
which  they  provided.  The  work  was  done  for  them,  and 
in  the  course  of  time  it  came  out  that  these  keys  had  been 
used  in  the  commission  of  an  extensive  burglary  at  San 
Antonio.  One  of  the  keys  had  been  lost,  and  by  chance 
bore  a  peculiar  mark  —  a  sort  of  monogram,  which  Mr. 
Hunt  caused  to  be  impressed,  when  proper,  upon  any  work 
which  was  issued  from  his  establishment.  The  key  being 
new,  and  it  being  evident  that  the  skilful  burglars  must 
have  had  long  acquaintance  with  the  premises  which  they 
invaded,  a  sheriff  of  San  Antonio  surmised  that  the  keys 
must  have  been  made  somewhere  in  Texas,  perhaps  to  the 
order  of  some  old  residents  of  that  State.  In  fact,  he  had 
his  eye  of  suspicion  upon  some  persons  who  had  long  borne 
unenviable  characters.  —  In  what  place  were  these  made 
more  likely  than  in  Galveston  queried  he  ?  So  he  sent  the 


416  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

key  to  a  sheriff  of  Galveston  for  his  inspection,  and  asked 
him,  if  possible,  to  find  out  who  made  the  key,  and  for  what 
description  of  person  it  was  made.  The  she  riff  of  Galveston 
instantly  recognized  Mr.  Hunt's  monogram.  Taking  down 
a  pair  of  handcuffs  which  hung  upon  a  nail  in  his  office, 
said  he  to  the  messenger,  "  See  here  !  These  were  made 
in  England,  but  I  had  occasion  to  get  Hunt's  establishment 
to  repair  them  a  little,  six  months  ago,  and  there,  you  see, 
(pointing  to  the  monogram),  he  put  on  his  stamp." 

It  was  only  the  matter  of  a  walk  of  ten  minutes  to  Hunt's 
establishment,  and  as  many  minutes  more  spent  in  getting 
a  detailed  account  from  the  workmen  and  from  my  partner 
—  Hunt's  then  clerk  —  of  the  personal  appearance  of  the 
two  men  who  ordered  the  keys,  when  the  messenger  be- 
came convinced  that  the  suspicions  of  the  officers  at  San 
Antonio  had  fallen  upon  the  wrong  persons ;  and  he  thought 
he  knew  the  real  parties,  —  comparatively  very  respectable 
people,  —  one  a  well-to-do  and  educated  middle-aged  planter, 
living  a  little  outside  of  San  Antonio,  —  and  so  it  proved. 
The  parties  were  arrested  and  tried.  My  partner  was 
called  as  a  witness  to  identify  them.  The  trifle  of  a  lost 
key,  and  the  little  monogram  almost  carelessly  stamped  on 
it  by  the  mechanic,  having  led  to  such  results,  touched  the 
romantic,  speculative  nature  of  my  partner,  and  he  was 
never  easy  after  that  till,  in  the  course  of  time,  he  had 
found  his  way  into  the  business  at  New  Orleans,  from 
which  city  he  finally  came  on  to  New  York  to  reside. 

Mr.  Hunt  kept  up  a  correspondence,  with  him  for  years, 
always  trying  to  get  him  back  into  his  employ,  making  him 
excellent  offers,  but  he  never  returned  to  him,  save  on  a 
visit.  Now  it  happened  that  Mr.  Hunt  was  a  native  of  the 
same  village,  or  its  vicinity,  in  which  my  partner  was  born, 
and  on  his  summer  visits  there,  —  which  he  made  nearly 
every  year,  —  he  had  often  descanted  upon  the  great  talents 
and  ingenuity  of  my  partner.  Thus  was  it  that  the  com- 
mittee came  to  wmit  upon  him.  But  it  was  impossible  for 
him  to  go  there  with  them,  or  visit  the  place  for  a  long 


"DON'T  YOU   SEE   STRAIGHT   THEOUGH  IT?"          417 

while,  for  he  was  to  take  steamer  the  day  but  one  there- 
after for  England,  at  the  instance  of  Commodore  Vander- 
bilt,  to  aid  in  investigations  into  some  transactions  in  which 
it  was  believed  that  certain  American  scoundrels,  whom  my 
partner  knew,  were  involved. 

We  had  been  introduced  to  the  committee  as  the  partner 
of  the  firm,  and  we  had  listened  to  a  portion  of  the  story, 
when  my  partner  announced  the  fact  of  his  intended  visit 
to  England,  and  added ;  "  But,  gentlemen,  that  need  be  no 
loes  to  you,  for  my  partner  here  can  be  of  as  much  service 
to  you  as  I,"  —  being,  in  his  kindness,  pleased  to  add,  — 
"and,  I  think,  probably  more.  If  you  please  to  accept 
him  in  my  place,  I  am  sure  you  will  suffer  no  loss.  He 
will  track  out  the  villains  if  anybody  can." 

The  committee  expressed  their  great  regrets  at  not  being 
able  to  secure  my  partner's  services,  but  said  they  would 
tell  us  their  story  in  full,  and  if,  after  hearing  it,  I  thought 
I  could  be  of  service  to  them,  they  would  like  to  have  me 
go  out  there. 

He  listened  to  their  recital  of  the  numerous  burglaries, 
robberies  from  the  person,  and  so  forth,  with  great. patience, 
each  of  us  asking  a  few,  but  a  very  few.  questions,  at 
different  points  of  their  narrative.  Long  before  they  got  to 
the  end  of  the  doleful  story,  and  after  having  asked  not 
over  a  half  dozen  questions  at  most,  my  partner,  I  clearly 
saw  from  his  manner,  had  formed  his  theory,  and  I  saw  that 
he  thought  it  an  easy  case  to  work  up. 

When  the  committee  had  finished,  my  partner  said  to 
them,  "  Gentlemen,  excuse  us  for  a  few  minutes.  I  wish 
to  consult  my  partner,"  and  rising,  stepped  into  the  next 
room,  whither  I  followed  him,  shutting  the  floor  behind  me, 
when  my  partner,  clapping  his  hand  with  an  air  of  victory 
on  my  shoulder,  whispered  to  me,  "  An  easy  case,  old  boy, 
eh  ?  I  suppose  you've  worked  up  the  theory  by  this  time  ? 
Do'lr't  you  see  straight  through  it?" 

"  No,  I  confess  I  don't  see  through  it  all ;  but  I've  got 
some  glimpses  of  light." 


418  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

"  Well,"  said  he,  "  I've  told  you  about  that  San  Antonio 
case,  which  first  started  me  into  the  detective  business  — 
haven't  I?" 

"  Yes ;  but  I  don't  see  the  bearing  of  that  on  this  ex- 
actly ! " 

"  Don't  see  ?  Why  there  was  only  one  peculiar  feature 
about  that,  and  there's  the  like  in  this  case,  if  I  am  not 
mistaken  ;  that  is,  these  robberies  are  perpetrated,  not  by 
old,  skilful  burglars,  but  by  raw  hands,  comparatively,  who 
reside  right  about  there,  and  are  probably  '  respectable 
citizens '  —  teach  Sunday-school,  likely  enough." 

With  this  from  my  partner,  which  struck  me  then  as  the 
true  theory,  we  analyzed  the  stories  of  the  committee  in  the 
light  of  it,  and  became  perfectly  assured  that  the  theory 
was  right,  and  were  about  proceeding  to  the  next  room  to 
talk  further  with  the  committee,  when  my  partner  said, 
11  See  here,  we  mustn't  tell  these  men  our  theory.  Who 
knows  but  some  of  them,  —  0,  that  can't  be;  they  are  too 
old,  too  clumsy,  not  alert  enough,  and  too  honest  too,  for 
that, — but  some  of  their  relations,  their  sons  or  nephews, 
perhaps,  are  the  villains  who  are  doing  all  this  work  !  No, 
we  mustn't  tell  them."  So  we  hit  upon  what  we  would  say. 

Stepping  into  the  room  where  the  committee  sat,  look- 
ing as  sedate  and  sombre,  by  the  way,  as  if  they  were 
judges  sitting  upon  some  complex  trial  for  arson,  murder, 
and  what  not,  they  looked  up,  and  one  of  them  asked, 
'•  Well,  gentlemen,  what  conclusion  have  you  come  to?" 

My  partner  quietly  replied,  "  Wo  have  worked  out  our 
theory." 

"  Pray  tell  us  what  it  is  ? "  exclaimed  one  of  the 
committee,  his  lace  lighting  up  as  if  scales  were  falling 
from  his  eyes,  and  he  was  to  be  suddenly  extricated  from 
the  "  mystery  of  darkness." 

"  Well,  gentlemen,"  he  responded,  "  my  partner,  ^nd 
I  have  satisfied  ourselves  that  we  are  on  the  right 
tra<-k.  In  our  business,  you  must  know,  one  case  is  often 
suggestive  in  unraveling  another.  We  get  to  be  able  to 


RAISING  A    "FALSE  ISSUE."  419 

track  old  offenders,  as  the  Indian  tracks  bis  enemy  through 
the  forest.  It  would  take  me  too  long  to  explain  the  whole 
mystery  to  you.  But  you  may  be  sure  that  we've  got  hold 
of  some  of  the  right  '  ear  marks  '  of  these  villains,  and  my 
partner  is  not  only  willing  to  undertake  the  case,  but  I  am 
confident  that  he  will  work  it  out  all  right.  This  is  all  I 
can  say  to  you  on  that  point.  Shall  he  go  ahead  ?  " 

"  Certainly,  certainly,"  responded  the  committee,  one 
after  the  other,  "  if  you  think  it  can  be  done  ;  our  neigh- 
bors must  have  relief  from  these  outrages." 

"  Well,  one  thing  I  wish  to  enjoin  upon  you,  gentlemen. 
In  calling  a  public  meeting,  and  appointing  you  as  a  com- 
mittee to  come  publicly  to  me,  your  citizens  have  taken 
false  steps.  Your  business  ought  to  have  been  kept  pri- 
vate —  known  only  to  a  few  of  you  at  most,  and  that  in 
positive  secrecy.  Now  the  first  steps  toward  undoing  this 
false  one,  is  for  you  to  report,  on  your  arrival  home,  that 
you  couldn't  get  me ;  that  I  was  on  the  point  of  starting 
for  Europe ;  but  that  you  told  me  your  story,  and  I  said  it 
was  all  the  work  of  some  old  burglars,  whom  the  police 
had  driven  out  from  this  quarter,  and  that  there  was  prob- 
ably connected  with  them  an  old  London  burglar  by  the 
name  of l  Jerry  Black/  or  who  bore  that  name  once,  and  is 
now  supposed  to  bo  living  in  Cincinnati ;  that  I  said  further 
that  'twas  a  very  hard  case  to  work  up,  these  old  burglars 
understanding  their  business  so  well,  and  that  the  best 
way  was  for  your  citizens  to  defend  their  houses  and 
themselves  as  well  as  they  can,  and  wait  for  some  accident 
to  disclose  the  robbers,  for  '  murder  will  out '  sooner  or 
later." 

The  committee  replied  that  they  would  heed  the  advice 
perfectly. 

"  Now,  then,  for  the  special  injunction,  which  is  this. 
Talk  as  little  in  general  about  your  visit  here  as  you  can, 
each  of  you  ;  but  do  you  each  be  careful  on  this  point, 
namely,  not  to  mention  the  fact  that  you  met  my  partner, 
or  that  I  have  one  at  all.  Indeed,  you  can  truthfully  say 


420  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

that  I  have  no  partner,  if  anybody  there  should  happen  to 
have  heard  that  I  have ;  for  although  we  are  partners  in 
the  sense  of  companions,  and  cooperators  sometimes,  yet 
we  are  not  '  partners  '  in  the  legal  sense  of  that  term, 
though  we  call  each  other  so,  in  the  style  of  the  profes- 
sion. Remember  this  !  " 

The  committee  promised  to  do  so,  and  we  went  on  talk- 
ing together,  laying  our  plans  to  the  extent  that  I  should 
duly  visit  the  place;  that  none  of  the  committee  was  to 
recognize  me  if  he  met  me  in  his  walks  ;  and  that  I  should 
probably  appear  there  as  a  Cincinnati  merchant ;  for  the 
detectives  of  the  best  repute  in  Cincinnati  had  already 
visited  the  place  unavailingly,  and  it  would  not  be  suspect- 
ed that  poorer  ones  would  be  employed  from  Cincinnati. 
I  made  inquiries  of  the  committee  about  the  various  busi- 
nesses transacted  in  the  place,  and  asked  the  names  of  the 
other  leading  citizens,  for  the  committee  were  all  of  them 
of  the  "  heavy  men  "  of  the  place.  Learning  all  I  thought 
of  use  of  these  gentlemen,  I  promised  to  appear,  if  my  life 
was  spared,  in  due  time,  and  not  at  a  late  day  at  that,  in 
the  town  and  go  to  work  ;  and  the  committee  left. 

It  was  a  useless  promise  which  we  exacted  of  the  com- 
mittee that  none  of  them  should  recognize  me  when  in 
their  village ;  for  when  they  came  to  the  office  I  had  but 
a  little  while  before  returned  from  an  expedition,  in  which 
I  had  worn  a  simple  but  effectual  disguise.  That  removed, 
and  my  coat  exchanged  for  another  one  in  my  closet,  a  few 
minutes  after  the  committee  left,  they  would  not  have  rec- 
ognized me  had  they  returned  at  the  time. 

Duly  after  the  departure  of  my  partner  for  Europe  I 
was  on  my  way  to  Ohio.  Before  he  left  we  had  talked  up 
the  matter  in  all  the  possible  phases  it  could  present,  and 
among  the  last  things  he  said  to  me,  on  our  way  down  to 
the  steamer,  was,  "That  case  may  bother  you;  but  it 
seems  to  me  now  as  easy  as  going  down  hill.  We  have 
the  sight  of  it,  and  if  the  committee  report  as  I  instruct- 
ed them,  you'll  succeed  at  once.  In  your  first  letter  to 


A  HIGHWAY  ROBBERY.  4?" 

me  "  (which,  by  the  way,  it  was  agreed  should  be  sent  by 
the  next  week's  steamer)  "  I  shall  not  be  surprised  to  learn 
of  '  victory  won.' " 

"  0,  no,  impossible ;  you  forget  the  distance." 

"  Yes,  truly  I  did.  Say,  then,  by  the  next  letter,"  for 
he  expected  to  be  gone  for  some  three  or  four  months,  if 
not  longer. 

"  But,"  said  he,  "  don't  let  anything  deflect  you  from  our 
theory,  whether  you  succeed  in  that  time  or  not.  It  will 
work  out  on  our  theory  some  way,  at  some  time." 

I  bade  my  partner  good  by,  as  the  ocean  steamer  started 
on  her  proud  course  out  into  the  bay,  and  returned  to  my 
office,  to  perfect  my  plans  in  detail  for  the  work  before  me, 
and  was,  as  I  said  before,  duly  on  my  way  to  Ohio.  My 
first  point  was  Cincinnati,  where,  arriving  safely,  I  set  my- 
self about  becoming  acquainted  with  names  of  streets,  then 
localities,  public  places,  names  of  many  citizens  and  their 
business  —  in  short,  I  "  booked  "  myself  up  in  regard  to 
Cincinnati,  in  order  to  be  "  at  home  "  whenever  talking 
with  the  citizens  of  the  village  to  which  I  was  going,  and 
who  would  soon  be  told  that  I  was  from  Cincinnati. 

Leaving  the  latter  place,  I  made  my  way  to  the  village 
in  question,  arriving  there  towards  evening,  on  a  lumber- 
ing stage-coach,  through  — literally,  not "  over  " — the  deep 
clay-mudded  roads,  and  alighted  at  the  principal  hotel  of 
the  place.  The  night  before,  or  rather  on  the  morning  of 
the  same  day,  for  it  was  between  the  hours  of  one  and  two 
A.  M.,  a  citizen  of  considerable  standing  had  been  robbed 
on  his  way  home  from  a  house  a  little  out  of  the  village, 
where  he  had  been  to  watch  with  a  sick  friend,  a  farmer. 
Being  relieved  from  watching  about  one  o'clock,  and  his 
wife  wishing  to  take  the  early  stage  which  left  at  the  inhos- 
pitable hour  of  six,  on  the  road  towards  Columbus,  whither 
she  was  going,  he  thought  to  return.  For  a  week  or  two 
the  robbers  had  ceased  from  their  theretofore  almost  night- 
ly outrages,  and  it  was  with  a  sort  of  smile  of  contempt 
that  Mr.  Hiram  Perkins,  —  for  that  was  the  citizen's  name, 


422  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

replied  to  an  old  lady  nurse,  as  he  was  departing,  and  who 
asked,  "  Ain't  you  afraid  of  the  robbers,  Mr.  Perkins  ?  " 
"  0,  no,  '  aunty,'  they  won't  touch  me ;  besides,  I  guess 
they  are  all  dead  now,  '  aunty.'  We  haven't  heard  'em 
peep  for  a  week  or  two  —  gone  off  to  some  better  laud." 

But  he  encountered  them,  nevertheless,  and  lost  four 
hundred  dollars,  and  something  over,  which  had  been  paid 
to  him  the  evening  before,  at  a  time  too  late  to  make  de- 
posit of  it  in  the  little  village  bank,  and  which  he  had  been 
foolish  enough  to  not  leave  at  home. 

This  amount  of  money  was  the  largest  which  the  rob- 
bers had  yet  secured.  They  had  effected  the  robbery,  to 
be  sure,  of  some  negotiable  bonds  of  considerably  greater 
value  ;  but  this  was  an  extreme  case,  and  was,  of  course,  at 
the  time  of  my  arrival  there  the  chief  topic  of  excitement. 
Added  to  the  robbery,  was  the  fact  that  Mr.  Perkins,  who 
had  made  stout  resistance,  had  been  severely  beaten,  and 
though  not  fatally  bruised,  was  lying  quite  feverish  in 
bed  :  such  was  the  report. 

1  had  had  a  room  put  in  order  for  me,  neglecting  to  put 
my  name  on  the  dirty  little  register  of  the  hotel,  where  I 
observed  that  everybody  who  could  write,  and  who  stepped 
in  to  the  "  tavern,"  was  in  the  habit  of  writing  his  name, 
and  putting  after  it  "  City  "  (that  was  the  town  where  I 
was),  —  a  custom,  probably,  introduced  by  some  joker,  who 
had  been  to  Cincinnati,  and  seen  names  registered  in  that 
way  there. 

But  when  I  came  down  from  my  room  into  the  "  office," 
or  "bar-room,"  properly  speaking,  the  young  clerk  said  to 
me,  "  Would  the  stranger  enter  his  name  ?  "  I  had  re- 
flected, meanwhile,  that  I  must  see  this  Mr.  Perkins,  and 
had  changed  my  original  plan  of  proceedings  a  little,  so  I 
entered  my  name  as  "Dr.  H.  H.Hudson,  Cin.,"  with  a  some- 
what bold  dash  of  the  pen,  and  soon  after  found  myself  on 
the  street,  seeking  the  way  to  Mr.  Perkins's  house.  While 
in  the  hotel  I  encountered,  and  had  quite  a  long  talk  with 
one  of  the  committee  who  had  visited  us  in  New  York. 


PLAYING  THE  DOCTOR.  423 

He  kept  his  promise,  and  did  not  "  recognize  "  me,  and 
perhaps  he  would  not  if  he  had  known  me.  He  told  me 
the  whole  story  of  his  visit  to  New  York ;  what  the  detec- 
tive said  to  him,  and  the  rest  of  the  committee ;  and,  said 
he,  "He  was  right  when  he  said  they  were  old  burglars 
who  were  committing  these  outrages,  for  nobody  but  men 
hardened  in  crime  could  have  robbed  Mr.  Perkins,  as  they 
did  last  night ;  "  and  when  I  went  out  of  the  tavern,  after 
registering  my  name,  to  seek  Mr.  P.'s  house,  I  encountered 
my  committee-man.  Again,  as  I  was  loitering  on  the  street, 
hardly  knowing  what  to  do  to  learn  the  way  to  Mr.  Per- 
kins's, he  had  evidently  looked  on  the  register  after  my 
departure  from  the  office  or  bar-room,  for  he  accosted  me. 

"  Ah,  again  !  Happy  to  come  across  you  again.  Dr. 
Hudson,  of  Cincinnati,  I  hear?" 

"  Yes,  sir,"  I  replied ;  "  a  doctor  by  profession,  but  re- 
tired somewhat  from  practice." 

"  Yes,  yes ;  yours  is  a  pretty  hard  life,  that  of  a  doctor, 
sir.  I  suppose  all  you  doctors  in  the  city  retire  as  soon 
as  you  get  rich,"  said  the  facetious  committee-man. 

I  replied,  "  that  I  had  not  retired  from  business  exactly, 
for  I  was  engaged  more  or  less  in  speculation  ;  but  had 
always  pursued  the  course  of  registering  myself  as  a  doc- 
tor at  hotels,  for  I  found  that  I  generally  got  better  treat- 
ment than  when  1  registered  in  my  plain  name." 

"  Well,  sir,"  said  he,  "  I  was  thinking  of  going  to  call  at 
friend  Perkins's,  and  see  how  he's  getting  along.  He's 
pretty  low,  I  fear.  As  you  are  a  doctor,  perhaps  you  would 
like  to  accompany  me.  You  might  suggest  something  for 
his  comfort." 

I  accepted  the  invitation  with  a  half-reluctant  manner, 
and  we  walked  on  towards  Mr.  Perkins's  house,  my  friend, 
meanwhile,  telling  me  all  about  Mr.  P.,  his  wealth,  family 
affairs,  etc.  We  were  bidden  to  enter  the  house  on  knock- 
ing, and  the  committee-man  was  invited  into  the  "  bed- 
room "  to  see  Mr.  Perkins,  from  which  he  came  soon  out, 
and  said,  — 


124  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

"  I  dare  say  you'd  like  to  see  Mr.  Perkins.  He  is  pretty 
severely  bruised  ;  but  says  he's  better,  and  shall  be  out  in 
a  day  or  two.  I  told  him  I  had  a  friend  along  with  me, 
Dr.  Hudson,  of  Cincinnati ;  and  he  says  he  don't  need  a 
doctor,  but  that  he  shall  be  glad  to  see  you  as  a  gentle- 
man, and  friend  of  mine."  So  I  accompanied  my  friend 
to  Mr.  Perkins's  room ;  and  had  hardly  been  presented  to 
him  before  I  made  up  my  mind  to  take  him  into  my  coun- 
sels, for  there  was  a  certain  frank  nobility  in  his  counte- 
nance, and  an  intelligence  which  quite  won  my  esteem  on 
the  instant. 

We  conversed  about  the  robbery,  and,  after  that,  about 
various  topics  of  the  day ;  and  the  more  we  talked,  the 
more  I  liked  him.  By  and  by  the  committee-man  recol- 
lected an  engagement ;  said  that  he  must  go,  but  didn't 
want  to  interrupt  Mr.  Perkins's  and  my  conversation  ;  "  for, 
doctor,  I  perceive,"  said  he,  "  that  you've  made  him  very 
cheerful,  without  pills  even.  Sometimes  I  think  there's 
more  in  a  doctor  than  in  his  medicines,"  said  he,  with  a 
very  arch  smile. 

"  0,  no,"  said  Mr.  Perkins  ;  "  if  you  must  go,  you  needn't 
take  the  doctor.  He's  a  stranger  here,  and  'tisn't  late  yet, 
and  he  can  find  his  way  back  easily  enough." 

And  so  I  staid  after  the  committee-man  went  out;  and  I 
talked  with  Mr.  Perkins  more  about  the  robbery,  and  the 
burglaries,  etc. ;  but  I  could  get  no  occasion  for  private 
conversation  with  him,  as  the  bed-room  door,  opening  into 
a  "  sitting-room,"  was  constantly  open,  and  the  sitting-room 
generally  occupied  by  one  or  more  persons,  females,  or 
else  they  were  flitting  back  and  forth ;  so  at  last  I  told  Mr. 
Perkins  that  I  had  come  to  him  on  some  business  in  regard 
to  which  I  should  like  to  consult  him  in  the  morning  a 
little  while,  if  he  were  well  enough.  He  very  kindly  con- 
sented, and  I  departed. 

On  returning  to  the  hotel,  I  was  accosted  at  once  by  a 
gentleman,  around  whom  stood  a  dozen  other  eager  ones. 


"LAYING   OUT  THE   LAND."  425 

"  Doctor,  you've  been  over  to  see  Mr.  Perkins,  we  hear ; 
Low's  he  getting  along  ?  Recover  soon  ?  " 

"  0,  yes,"  said  I ;  "  he'll  recover  speedily  if  he  is  left 
quiet  for  a  day  or  two.  The  neighbors,  I  hear,  are  run- 
ning in  to  see  him  a  great  deal ;  but  I  think  I  shall  order 
that  nobody  be  admitted  for  a  day  or  two." 

Fortunately,  Mr.  Perkins's  family  physician  had  at  this 
time  gone  to  the  funeral  of  his  mother,  whose  home  had 
been  somewhere  in  Pennsylvania,  and  Mr.  Perkins  would 
not  call  either  of  the  two  other ."  doctors  "  of  the  place, 
styling  them  '•  blasted  quacks."  So  that  I  could  very 
properly  say  that. 

1  listened  quite  late  that  night  to  the  villagers'  talk 
about  the  robberies.  Every  new  man  who  came  into  the  bar- 
room had  something  to  tell,  and  everybody  had  a  theory  ; 
but  they  all  declared  that  the  burglars  were  old  heads  at 
the  business  —  hard  to  catch,  "  as  that  New  York  detec- 
tive told  the  committee,"  they  said.  Things  were  work- 
ing well,  and  I  finally  retired  to  rest,  and  slept  very  sound- 
ly, to  my  surprise ;  for  strange  beds  generally  vex  me, 
and  keep  me  awake. 

The  next  morning  I  called  on  Mr.  Perkins  early,  and 
found  him  quite  comfortable ;  asked  him  to  order  that 
neighbors  who  might  be  coming  in  to  inquire  for  the 
state  of  his  health,  should  not  be  allowed  to  enter  his 
room  ;  and  though  surprised  at  first  at  my  request,  he 
granted  it,  and  I  felt  secure  of  a  good,  uninterrupted  talk 
with  him.  I  sounded  him,  to  my  satisfaction,  in  that  he 
was  a  man  who  could  keep  a  secret  profoundly,  and  then 
made  known  my  business  to  him.  He  was  glad  I  had  come, 
he  said,  and  he  would  give  me  all  the  information  in  his 
power. 

1  inquired  of  everybody  and  everything  in  the  place 
which  could  have  any  bearing'  on  the  matter  in  hand  ; 
learned  the  size,  tones  of  voice,  style  of  language,  as  far 
as  he  could  remember,  of  his  assailants,  the  highway  rob- 
bers ;  gathered  from  him  all  I  could  of  what  had  been 
23  17 


426  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

overheard  from  the  robbers'  lips  on  various  occasions ; 
and  I  learned  ono  especially  important  matter  of  him, 
which  was,  that  one  of  the  robbers  was  dressed  in  "  a  loose 
sack,  like,"  and  that  in  his  contest  with  him,  he  thought 
that  he  felt  that  one  of  his  hands,  off  from  which  a  glove 
became  slipped  in  the  fight,  was  callous  on  the  back.  This 
he  had  not  laid  up  in  memory,  but  my  questions  called  it 
to  mind.  At  this  point  I  developed  my  theory  that  the 
robberies  were  committed  by  residents  of  the  village  ;  and 
told  him  that  they  were  not  what  professional  robbers 
would  call "  good  work,"  skilfully  done ;  and  then  I  asked 
him, — 

"  Now,  Mr.  Perkins,  do  you  know  any  man  in  or  about 
this  place  who  has  a  scarred,  hard  hand,  such  as  you  de- 
scribe?" 

"  Yes ;  but  I  would  not  dare  mention  his  name  in  this 
connection,  for  he  is  an  innocent,  elegant  young  gentle- 
man, very  mild  in  his  manners  ;  came  here  a  few  months 
ago  with  the  best  recommendations  from  a  clerical  friend, 
an  old  schoolmate  of  mine,  in  Massachusetts,  and  bore  a 
letter  to  me  from  him.  0,  I  won't  allow  myself  to  name 
him ;  it  would  be  too  bad,"  said  he. 

"  But,"  said  I,  "  the  greatest  scoundrels  steal  the  livery 
of  heaven  to  serve  the  devil  in,  you  know ;  and  I  am  here 
to  work,  and  you  want  the  full  truth  to  come  out,  hit 
where  it  may  —  don't  you  ?  " 

"  Yes ;  but  it  can't  be  this  young  man  :  and  yet  the  vil- 
lain was  about  his  size." 

"  And  wore  a  '  sack,  like/  you  say.  Do  you  know  if 
this  young  man  has  any  such  garment?" 

"  O,  no,  it  was  quite  like  a  hostler's  work  coat.  He 
hasn't  anything  of  the  sort." 

"  Well  —  no  matter :  please  give  me  his  name,  and  tell 
me  all  about  him.  What  is  he  doing  here  ?" 

"  Teaching  music,  principally ;  teaches  most  anything  — 
the  languages,  especially  French ;  says  he  has  lived  in 
France  a  while  ;  but  'tain't  he  —  and  —  if  'twas,  I  don't 


FURTHER   COUNSELLING.  427 

know  but  I  should  forgive  him,  if  I  knew  it,  as  £ar  as  I  am 
concerned,  and  let  him  go,  or  send  him  off;  for  he's  en- 
gaged to  a  beautiful  niece  of  mine,  and  first  made  her 
acquaintance  here  at  my  house.  They  had  but  just  left 
when  you  called  last  night,  and  were  full  of  sympathy  for 
me.  He  is  very  active  in  devising  plans  to  catch  the  vil- 
lains, and  has  been  out  frequently  with  others,  keeping 
night  watch." 

"  Were  there  any  robberies  on  the  nights  of  such  watch- 
ing ?  "  I  asked. 

"  No ;  but  I  never  suspected  there  would  be,  when  so 
many  were  watching." 

"  Yet,"  said  I,  "  from  what  I  learn,  the  robberies  have 
been  very  bold  at  times  —  early  in  the  evening,  when  peo- 
ple were  abroad." 

"  True,"  he  replied.  "  I  didn't  think  of  that  before.  I 
wish  I  could  have  got  at  the  scoundrels'  faces  that  night; 
but  their  caps  were  securely  tied  on,  and  their  faces 
blackened." 

"  They  were  white  men,  you  are  sure,  then?  " 

«  Yes ;  no  doubt  of  that." 

Finally,  I  persuaded  Mr.  Perkins  to  give  me  the  man's 
name,  as  he  knew,  of  course,  I  could  now  find  it  out  by  in- 
quiring of  somebody  else,  if  I  thought  prudent  to  inquire. 

We  talked  over  the  matter  still  further :  and  Mr.  Per- 
kins agreed  to  keep  to  his  bed  for  two  or  three  days.  I 
was  to  reconnoitre,  and  report  to  him  what  I  found  out, 
and  we  were  to  consult  together,  and  I  left.  I  avoided 
making  the  acqaintance  of  the  young  man  in  question, 
although  I  had  twenty  occasions  for  so  doing  for  a  day  or 
two ;  but  on  the  night  of  the  third  day  after  my  arrival 
another  burglary  took  place,  of  considerable  amount,  and 
there  was  evidence,  too,  of  an  attempt  at  arson.  In  listen- 
ing to  the  investigation  of  the  burglary,  I  thought  I  saw 
that  the  young  music  teacher  was  as  likely  as  anybody  to 
have  had  a  hand  in  it ;  and  was  confirmed  in  my  suspicions 


428  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

by  his  manner,  when  I  heard  him  talk  it  over  next  day 
with  some  friends  at  the  hotel. 

I  managed  to  get  near  him,  and  spoke  of  the  robberies 
as  the  most  daring  outrages,  and  suggested  that  there  must 
be  a  gang  of  villains  —  old  offenders  —  secreted  near  the 
village  somewhere,  or  else  they  must,  if  coming  from 
abroad,  perform  herculean  feats  of  riding.  But  he  told  me 
lie  thought  my  theory  was  a  mistake,  as  no  strange  horses  or 
teams  had  ever  been  discovered  in  or  near  the  village  on 
the  occasions  of  robbery;  and  entered  very  intelligently  into 
the  question,  declaring  at  last  that  the  villains  must  be 
caught  if  he  himself  were  obliged,  with  others,  to  lie  in  wait 
for  a  year.  There  was  something  a  little  bombastic  in  his 
style  as  he  said  this,  which  confirmed  my  suspicions  of  him 
more  and  more.  lie  told  me  he  had  heard  of  my  attend- 
ance upon  Mr.  Perkins ;  Avas  glad  he  had  such  skilful 
care,  and  that  he  seemed  improving ;  and  as  he  resorted 
there  much  himself,  had  hoped  to  meet  me  there,  but  had  not 
happened  to ;  was  glad  to  have  made  my  acquaintance,  etc. ; 
all  of  which  was  uttered  with  a  very  innocent,  and  indcr.l 
pleasant  air,  yet  I  suspected  him,  somehow,  only  the  more. 

Mr.  Perkins  kept  apparently  ill,  and  I  visited  him  regu- 
larly. Two  nights  after  my  interview  with  the  music 
teacher,  as  related  above,  I  was  going  home  from  Mr.  Per- 
kins's to  the  hotel.  (I  should  mention  that  the  teacher, 
whose  name  in  the  village  was  Henry  Downs,  —  but  not  his 
true  name,  —  had  called  at  Mr.  Perkins's,  and  left  a  quarter 
of  an  hour  before.)  Going  to  the  hotel,  as  1  have  said,  I 
passed  two  men  standing  beside  a  large  tree  on  the  line  of 
the  sidewalk.  The  evening  was  very  dark,  and  I  only  saw 
them  when  within  six  feet  of  them,  perhaps,  and  I  heard 
one  of  them  say,  "  Ah,  ha !  the  old  fool  is  unsuspicious ; 
we'll  get  another  chance  near  home.  A  good  night  to- 
night, eh?"  The  voice  was  unmistakably  that  of  the 
teacher,  and  I  inferred  that  he  alluded  to  Mr.  Perkins. 
"  Hush,"  I  heard  the  other  man  say,  as  I  approached  in 
passing  them;  and  I  saw  that  the  other  man  had  on  a 


FEARFUL  OF  THE  ROBBERC-          420 

"  sack-like,"  such  as  Mr.  Perkins  had  described.  Of  course 
I  was  now  fully  confirmed  in  my  suspicions,  and  devised 
various  plans  to  trap  the  villains,  but  nothing  I  could  think 
of  seemed  likely  to  me  or  Mr.  Perkins  to  prove  practical. 
At  last  we  hit  upon  this  as  a  first  step.  I  was  to  get  ill 
enough  to  keep  my  room  as  Mr.  Perkins  got  well.  He  was 
to  visit  me  in  turn,  and  was  to  consult  the  committee,  who 
were  greatly  vexed  all  the  while  among  themselves  (as  it 
appeared  afterwards)  that  that  '  rascally  New  York  detec- 
tive did  not  come  on.'  Mr.  Perkins  was  to  report  me  as 
a  man  of  much  wealth,  with  quite  a  sum  of  money,  which 
I  had  brought  intending  to  speculate,  but  having  looked 
around,  and  not  being  satisfied  with  any  real  estate  for  sale 
there,  was  going  away  as  soon  as  I  recovered.  This  was 
noised  about,  and  a  week  or  so  passed  before  I  got  up  and 
was  ready  to  go.  Mr.  Perkins,  in  the  mean  while,  had  come 
to  my  opinion  that  the  music  teacher  was  indeed  the  vil- 
lain, and  believing  it  his  duty  to  expose  him  rather  than 
shield  him  on  his  niece's  account,  entered  quite  spiritedly 
into  my  plans. 

The  music  teacher  was  more  attentive  to  me  than  ever 
when  I  met  him,  after  it  was  said  that  I  was  rich ;  and  at  a 
little  party  which  Mr.  Perkins  gave  me  the  night  before  I  was 
to  leave,  the  teacher  was  all  attention  to  me.  It  was  given 
out  that  I  should  leave  the  next  night,  on  the  way  north  of 
the  village,  to  call  on  a  relative  living  about  twenty  miles 
from  that  village.  I  must  be  there,  it  was  said,  that  night, 
to  meet  my  friend  from  whom  I  had  had  a  letter,  and  who 
would  leave  by  the  stage  the  next  morning  after ;  and  for 
the  next  day  Mr.  Perkins  and  I  had  a  ride  of  twenty  miles 
and  back  to  take  in  another  direction  to  look  at  some  mills 
in  which  he  was  persuading  me  to  take  an  interest.  Mr. 
Perkins  was  to  loan  me  his  horse  for  the  night,  trip. 

The  ladies  presert  said,  some  of  them,  that  they  hoped 
Dr.  Hudson  would  not  think  of  going  in  the  night. 
"  Just  think  of  the  robbers."  I  replied  that  robbers  never 
touched  doctors ;  that  doctors  never  had  any  money  about 


430  KNOTS    UNTIED. 

them ;  that  they  would  not  take  my  pills,  I  presumed,  if 
I  were  to  prescribe  them  regularly ;  and  so  we  joked  over 
the  matter. 

The  next  day  Mr.  Perkins  and  I,  having  ridden  out  of 
town,  returned  after  dark,  and  after  a  good  supper  at  his 
house,  I  paid  my  bills  at  the  hotel,  took  his  horse  and  sallied 
forth  on  my  "  night  visit."  I  had  not  ridden  over  three 
miles,  and  was  passing  along  a  dark  avenue  lined  with  trees, 
when  suddenly  two  men  appeared  before  me,  each  grasp- 
ing at  a  rein,  and  one  presenting  a  pistol  as  near  my  head 
as  he  could  reach,  exclaimed,  in  a  husky  voice, — 

"  No  noise,  you  old  villain !     Dismount !  " 

"  Stop,  stop ! "  said  I,  in  a  low  voice.  "  Have  mercy  ! 
"What  do  you  want  of  me? " 

"Nothing  of  you,  —  but  your  money,"  answered  the 
husky  voice.  "  Get  off  your  horse  quick,  or  I'll  blow  your 
brains  out." 

"  I  will,  I  will ! "  I  whispered,  with  a  voice  that  intimated 
trepidation,  "  but  my  leg  is  a  little  lame.  Give  me  your 
hand  to  help,"  and  extended  my  left  hand,  which  he  took  in 
his  left,  still  holding  the  pistol  in  his  right.  He  had  to 
extend  his  left  hand  quite  high  to  help  me,  and  I  could  not 
only  feel,  but  see  the  scarred,  hard  hand  —  the  same  which 
Mr.  Perkins  had  felt,  and  a  like  of  which  deformed  the 
otherwise  handsome  music  teacher.  Of  course  his  face,  as 
well  as  his  comrade's  in  crime,  was  muffled. 

Having  dismounted,  they  insisted  on  my  giving  them  all 
my  money.  I  consented  without  resistance,  and  pulled 
out  my  wallet,  and  handed  him  fifteen  dollars  —  a  ten  dol- 
l;ir  and  a  five  dollar  bill. 

"  Give  us  the  rest,"  said  the  husky  voice. 

"  Gentlemen,"  I  said,  "  I  have  no  more." 

"  It  is  a  lie,  doctor,"  said  the  husky  voice.  "  We  know 
all  about  you  —  we've  watched  you,  and  know  that  you 
brought  hundreds  of  dollars  to  the  village  below." 

"  I  did,"  I  said ;  "  that  is  true  enough ;  but  my  patient, 
Mr.  Perkins,  and  I  took  a  ride  to  his  mills  to-day,  and  when 


ROBBED.  433 

t\«jre  I  invested  what  I  had,  all  but  enough  to  pay  my  bills 
about  here  and  get  back  again." 

"  But  we  must  search  you." 

I  said  "  Very  well/'  and  they  did  search  me  most  thorough- 
ly, and  took  my  bull's-eye  silver  watch  (not  very  valuable 
in  itself,  but  the  gift  of  an  old  brother  detective,  who  had 
since  died.  Said  he,  as  he  gave  it  to  me,  "  Don't  let  any- 
body rob  you  of  that,"  with  a  laugh;  and  I  thought  how  funny 
it  would  seem  to  him,  were  he  alive,  to  find  me  parting 
with  it  under  such  circumstances). 

The  robbers  let  me  go,  saying  they  had  no  use  for  the 
horse,  and  bade  me  have  more  money  about  me  next  time. 
Said  they'd  been  called  pretty  severe  and  cruel  on  certain 
occasions,  but  that  they  were  gentle  enough  with  folks  that 
didn't  make  foolish  resistance,  etc.  Indeed,  they  tried  to 
be  jocular  with  me ;  and  I  submitted  to  their  course,  and 
joined  in  it,  as  the  best  way.  They  bade  me  a  hearty  good 
night,  but  enjoined  me  not  to  stop  anywhere  and  mention 
my  loss  till  to-morrow,  or  they'd  find  some  way  to  dispose 
of  me  if  I  did,  with  like  threats ;  and  then  darted  off  into 
the  side  fields,  bidding  me  to  "  go  ahead,"  however ;  and 
I  rode  on  for  some  three  miles,  but  fortunately,  when  riding 
with  Mr.  Perkins  that  day,  I  had  noticed  a  cross  road,  which 
would  lead  into  the  road  on  which  he  and  I  had  come  out 
of  and  returned  into  the  town.  I  was  meditating,  at  the 
time  I  came  upon  it,  what  to  do.  Should  I  ride  back  furi- 
ously over  the  road  on  which  I  was  robbed,  the  villains 
might  waylay  me  again,  for,  perhaps,  they  were  not  far 
off' —  may  be  were  watching.  Perhaps  they  might  fire  upon 
me  ;  but  luckily  here  was  the  cross  road,  and  I  darted  down 
it,  and  found  my  way  back  into  the  village  by  the  old  road, 
and  you  may  be  sure  that  my  horse,  if  horses  have 
memories,  did  not  soon  forget  that  night's  race,  for  I  put 
him  to  the  top  of  his  speed.  I  alighted  at  the  barn  of  Mr. 
Perkins,  and  fortunately  found  there  his  "  hired  man,"  who 
clapped  the  horse  into  the  stable  at  once,  and  I  then  felt 
secure.  Getting  access  at  once  to  Mr.  Perkins,  I  narrated 


434  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

my  adventure.  lie  was  not  astounded  at  what  I  had 
learned,  for  he  had  for  some  time  believed,  as  I,  that  the 
music  teacher  was  the  man,  but  he  was  confounded  that 
the  villains  let  me  off  so  easily. 

Tin-  next  thing  was  to  catch  the  scamps,  and  make  the 
evidence  against  them  sure ;  and  Mr.  Perkins,  at  my  sug- 
gestion, sent  his  man  out  to  call  four  of  the  most  trusty 
citizens,  two  of  whom  chanced  to  be  of  the  original  com- 
mittee who  waited  upon  my  partner  and  me  in  New 
York,  to  come  to  his  house  at  once.  To  them,  when  they 
came,  was  intrusted  his  plan.  "  Dr.  Hudson  "  was  now  an- 
nounced as  the  partner-detective  whom  they  had  seen  in 
Xew  York.  He,  too,  had  been  robbed,  and  he  knew  who 
were  the  robbers  —  or  one  of  them !  Greater  astonish- 
ment than  these  gentlemen  evinced  at  this  disclosure  could 
not  well  be  expressed.  But  we  did  not  speak  to  them  of 
the  music  teacher.  They  were  to  remain  at  Mr.  Perkins's 
till  we  should  call  them.  Making  some  change  in  my  dress 
by  aid  of  articles  borrowed  of  Mr.  Perkins,  and  of  my 
countenance  by  assuming  a  pair  of  false  whiskers  which  I 
had  brought  with  me,  besides  a  hat  very  unlike  what  I  had 
been  wearing  in  the  village,  and  Mr.  Perkins  disguising 
himself,  we  went  forth,  and  placed  ourselves  where  we 
could  readily  perceive  any  comer  to  the  house  at  which 
the  music  teacher  boarded.  Patiently  we  watched.  Two 
hours  or  more  went  by,  when  a  man  came  from  the 
opposite  course  by  which  we  expected  him,  and,  proceed- 
ing to  the  door  of  the  house,  evidently  lightly  tried  it  — 
could  not  get  in ;  went  around  the  corner  of  the  house, 
noiselessly  raised  a  side  window,  and  as  noiselessly  mounted 
in.  I  was  not  over  thirty  feet  from  him  as  he  entered, 
and  notwithstanding  the  darkness,  I  felt  sure  I  knew  him, 
though  he  did  not  wear  the  sack.  Mr.  Perkins  had  seen 
his  stealthy  entry,  too,  from  another  point,  and  in  a  few 
minutes  we  came  together,  I  having  meanwhile  slid 
up  by  the  side  of  the  house  next  to  the  window,  and  heard 
tho  in-comer  open  or  close  a  window  above.  He  had 


AN  UNTIMELY  VISIT.  435 

already  gone  to  his  room,  which  Mr.  Perkins  had  told  me 
was  at  the  back  of  the  house.  He  knew  the  way  to  it  — 
had  called  on  the  young  man  there. 

We  proceeded  at  once  to  Mr.  Perkins's,  instructed  our 
waiting  friends  what  to  do,  —  for  we  might  need  aids,  — 
and  asked  them  to  follow.  No  man  was  to  speak  a  word, 
but  do  as  he  was  bidden. 

My  dark  lantern  was  lit  and  deposited  under  my  cloak, 
and  we  went  out,  along  down  the  street,  across  another, 
— down  another  a  little  way,  and  I  saw  that  the  citizens 
were  occasionally  looking  wonder  into  each  other's  eyes, 
as  much  as  to  say,  Where  are  we  going  ?  We  arrived  at 
the  house,  entered  the  yard.  Mr.  Perkins,  by  our  arrange- 
ments, was  to  take  and  post  two  of  the  men  under  tke 
villain's  window,  to  catch  him  in  case  he  should  try  to 
escape,  to  one  of  whom  he  gave  a  pistol,  saying,  "  Qatch 
any  man  who  tries  to  escape  out  of  this  house.  Shoot  him, 
if  necessary." 

Up  to  this  point  not  a  word  had  been  said  to  them  of  the 
music  teacher.  We  had  thought  best  to  not  knock  for 
admission,  of  course ;  and  I  got  in  at  the  window  where  the 
villain  had  entered,  proceeded  to  the  little  hall,  unlocked 
silently  the  front  door,  and  let  in  Mr.  P.  and  the  two  other 
men.  "  Follow  me  softly,"  whispered  Mr.  P.,  and  be  led 
to  the  villain's  room. 

An  hour  had  passed  since  we  saw  him  come  in,  and  we 
concluded  he'd  be  asleep,  as  he  was.  We  carefully  tried 
the  door :  it  was  locked  by  a  button.  Mr.  Perkins  whis- 
pered to  me,  "Shall  we  rap,  and  catch  him  when  he  rises?" 

"  No,  no,"  I  answered  quickly ;  and  with  a  dash  against 
the  door  with  my  shoulders,  easily  effected  entrance. 
The  villain  started  wildly.  I  threw  the  dazzling  light  of 
my  dark  lantern  into  his  face,  and  rushed  upon  him  in  bed, 
clutched  his  throat,  and  cried,  "  Seize  his  clothes,  and 
everything  in  the  room !  This  is  the  man.  Open  the  win- 
dow, and  call  in  the  others  te-the  show;"  and  Mr.  Per- 
kins did  so. 

17* 


436  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

In  an  instant  the  two  men  had  found  their  way  up  to  the 
room ;  and,  in  fact,  the  whole  household  was  by  this  time 
aroused.  We  made  speedy  work  of  searching  the  wretch's 
clothes,  and  among  other  money  found  the  five  dollar  bill 
taken  from  me.  Without  explanation,  I  passed  it  to  Mr. 
Perkins,  who  recognized  a  peculiar  mark  we  had  made 
upon  it,  its  date,  etc.  But  the  ten  dollar  bill  was  found  in 
the  villain's  trunk,  together  with  quite  a  sum  of  money. 
Mr.  Perkins  recognized  the  marks  we  had  placed  upon 
that :  the  watch  was  not  to  be  found. 

The  teacher  was  a  lithe,  muscular  fellow,  and  would 
have  given  me,  alone,  much  trouble  to  hold  him ;  but  he 
was  overwhelmed,  and  did  little  else  but  groan.  We  at 
once  told  him  of  the  marked  bills,  etc.,  and  pointed  out  to 
him  that  his  best  course  now  was  to  expose  his  accom- 
plice, or  accomplices;  that  the  bitterest  curses  of  the  law 
would  fall  upon  him  if  he  did  not. 

The  pale,  trembling  fellow,  a  real  coward  at  heart,  aa 
many  such  villains  are,  made  his  confession  on  the  spot, 
notes  of  which  were  taken  down  by  me.  and  by  one  of  the 
committe-men  in  his  diary.  He  told  us  that  his  accom- 
plice was ,  a  son  of  a  pretty  well-to-do  farmer,  whose 

name  I  cannot  mention,  and  whose  relations  still  reside  in 
the  village  —  most  estimable  people,  which  is  the  reason 
why  I  have  carefully  avoided  mentioning  the  name  of  the 
place. 

When  he  named  his  accomplice,  one  of  the  commit- 
tee-men groaned  audibly  (I  should  say  that  we  had  kept 
the  inmates  of  the  house  out  of  the  room  during  this'  con- 
fr-sion),  for  the  accomplice,  it  appears,  was  that  committee- 
man's  nephew  ! — a  much-esteemed,  industrious  young  man, 
led  away  by  the  brilliancy,  dash,  and  superior  education  of 
the  music  teacher. 

But  where  was  the  watch  ?  The  teacher  told  us.  Un- 
der a  barn  belonging  to  his  accomplice's  father,  and  not 
ten  rods  from  his  residence,  was  a  place  of  deposit  for  such 
things  as  they  could  not  readily  dispose  of.  Indeed,  they 


HUNTING  FOR  TREASURES.          437 

had  disposed  of  but  little :  there  he  thought  we  could  find 
it,  and  there,  next  morning,  we  did. 

But  here  was  a  complication.  The  nephew  must  be 
saved  if  possible,  and  Mr.  Perkins  could  not  bear  the  expos- 
ure which  would  involve  his  niece  in  disgrace,  and  we 
were  nonplussed  what  to  do. 

We  arranged,  finally,  that  since  the  inmates  of  the  house 
did  not  know  for  certainty  that  this  teacher  was  the  villain, 
that  we  would  let  it  go  abroad  that  we  had  all  been  out, 
together  with  the  teacher,  watching  the  villains;  that  the 
teacher  had  suffered  a  severe  fall  when  getting  over  a 
high  fence,  and  that  we  had  come  home  with  him  —  all  this 
upon  the  condition  that  the  avails  of  all  his  robberies 
should  be  restored  to  the  rightful  parties,  and  that  he 
should  allow  Mr.  Perkins  to  go  and  draw,  on  his  order,  all 
his  money  in  a  certain  bank  in  Cincinnati,  where  he  said 
he  had  at  the  time  twenty-eight  hundred  dollars,  which  we 
found  to  be  true;  and  that  he  should  in  the  end  accompany 
me  to  Pittsburg,  Pa.,  which  he  declared  to  be  the  theatre 
of  his  first  essays  in  crime,  and  where  he  said  he  was 
willing  to  deliver  himself  up  to  the  authorities  for  old 
offences;  for  he  was  as  penitent  a  man,  in  appearance, 
as  I  ever  -saw,  and  said  he  would  rather  go  to  State's 
Prison  for  life,  than  be  longer  pursued  by  terrible  temp- 
tations to  crime. 

One  of  our  party  was  left  with  him  that  night,  armed, 
and  bidden  to  shoot  him  if  he  attempted  to  escape ;  and 
the  rest  went  forth.  We  found  the  place  of  deposit  under 
the  barn,  removed  everything  therefrom  to  a  safe  place, 
and  next  morning  Mr.  Perkins  called  on  the  young  farmer, 
took  him  out  to  the  barn,  and  showed  him  my  bull's-eye 
watch. 

"  Did  you  ever  see  that,  sir." 

"  No,"  said  the  young  man. 

"  No  lies  sir,"  said  Mr.  P ;  "  we  are  going  to  do  you 

no  harm.  The  villain  "  (the  music  teacher)  "  has  told  us 
all  about  it.  We  have  removed  the  things  from  down 


438  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

there  "  (pointing  to  the  place  of  deposit),  "  and  you  are 
caught,  beyond  hope  of  escape." 

The  young  man  turned  pale,  fell  over  upon  Mr.  Perkins's 
breast,  and  groaned  out,  "  O  God,  that  villain,  as  you  call 
him,  has  mined  me  1  I  could  not  resist  him ;  he  dragged 
me  along  against  my  will.  I  have  suffered  tortures  of  con- 
science. I  cannot  resist  him !  O,  spare  me  !  " 

"  Yes,  yes,"  said  P ,  affected  to  tears  by  the  young 

man's  sufferings,  "  I  believe  you.  You  have  been  under 
a  spell.  We  will  see  what  can  be  done  for  you.  As  for 
myself,  I  forgive  you." 

That  day  there  was  a  private  conference  of  the  discov- 
ering parties  at  Mr.  Perkins's  house.  The  whole  matter 
was  discussed,  and  it  was  concluded  that  the  villain  should 
suffer  his  just  punishment  in  Pennsylvania  rather  than  in 
Ohio ;  that  he  should  leave  with  "  Dr.  Hudson,"  and  be  no 
more  heard  of  there ;  that  the  young  farmer  should  be 
allowed  to  repent ;  and  that  so  many  of  his  relations,  the 
committee-man  with  the  rest,  should  not  be  put  to  the  dis- 
grace of  his  public  punisliment.  He  was  sent  for,  and  came ; 
and  a  more  harrowing  case  of  an  accusing  conscience  than 
was  his,  imagination,  in  its  wildest  flights,  could  hardly 
depict.  I  felt  for  him  to  the  bottom  of  my  soul.  The 
teacher,  who  was  so  watched  that  he  could  by  no  means 
escape,  was  sent  for  too,  and  when  he  came,  the  poor  young 
fanner  looked  at  him  with  bewildering  horror.  The  whole 
matter  was  discussed  before  him,  his  order  duly  made  on 
the  bank,  and  Mr.  Perkins  departed  next  day  to  draw  the 
money.  Meanwhile  it  was  arranged  that  the  other  prop- 
erty should  all  be  brought  and  deposited  in  Mr.  Perkins's 
bam  at  night,  with  a  note  accompanying  it,  that  the  rob- 
bers, having  no  use  for  it,  wished  it  distributed  to  those 
to  whom  it  belonged ;  which,  becoming  known  to  the  vil- 
lagers, there  was  a  throng  for  hours  at  the  barn  next  day, 
—  one  recognizing  and  claiming  this  silver  spoon,  —  some 
old  watch  —  this  watch  chain — that  silver  snuff-box  (with 
the  snuff  and  the  veritable  "  bean "  in  it),  as  the  owner 


A  DEPARTURE.  439 

said,  and  so  on  and  so  on,  together  with  a  few  valuable 
books,  all  small  articles,  and  many  of  them  ladies'  orna- 
ments. How  they  came  to  the  barn,  is,  I  suppose,  a  mys- 
tery still  to  the  villagers. 

Mr.  Perkins  returned  with  the  money,  was  paid  back  all 
that  had  been  robbed  from  him,  and  the  teacher  insisted 
that  he  should  take  a  hundred  dollars  more.  The  teacher 
paid  his  bills  in  town,  being  all  the  time  closely  watched 
by  some  two  of  us,  and  the  residue  of  the  money  was  put 
into  my  hands.  A  strict  oath  of  eternal  secrecy  was  taken 
by  Perkins  and  the  other  four  gentlemen,  on  account  of  the 
penitent  young  farmer.  (I  wish  I  dare  to  tell  what  has 
become  of  him,  but  it  might  lead  to  his  identification. 
Suffice  it  that  he  was,  when  I  last  heard  about  him,  only 
a  year  and  a  half  ago,  regarded  as  the  finest  and  best 
young  man  anywhere  to  be  found.  He  had  married  a 
niece  of  Mr.  Perkins,  by  the  way.  And  here,  perhaps,  I 
ought  to  say  that  "  Perkins  "  is  not  the  proper  name  of  my 
friend,  but  one  I  have  used  for  convenience ;  for  it  would 
be  a  wretched  thing  to  do  to  give  any  clew  to  the  young 
farmer's  identification.) 

Finally,  all  being  settled,  the  music  teacher  consenting 
to  the  suggestion  of  the  committee  that  I  should  be  paid 
out  of  his  funds  one  thousand  dollars,  then  and  there,  and 
I  keeping  the  rest  of  his  money,  we  bade  our  friends  good 
by,  and  started  on  our  way  to  Pittsburg.  I  had  no  trouble 
with  the  teacher  on  my  way  to  Cincinnati  (it  was  given 
out,  by  the  by,  that  he  was  going  to  study  medicine  with 
"  Dr.  Hudson  ") ;  but  when  we  arrived  in  Cincinnati  I  took 
him  aside,  told  him  he  was  my  prisoner,  and  that  I  would 
give  him  a  disguise,  so  that  he  need  not  be  subject  to 
shame  in  case  we  encountered,  on  our  way,  anybody  he 
might  know ;  but  that  he  must  submit  to  be  manacled  in 
travelling  with  me  farther,  for  I  feared  he  would  escape. 
He  consented  to  this. 

I  started  with  him  from  Cincinnati  to  Pittsburg,  and 
arriving  there,  placed  him  in  charge  of  parties  at  the 


440  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

hotel  where  I  stopped.  He  wanted  to  write  some  letters, 
he  said,  and  I  let  him  do  so.  One  of  them  was  to  the  lady 
ho  had  left  behind,  Mr.  Perkins's  niece.  The  letters  could 
not  go  till  the  morning's  mail,  and  I  could  not,  of  course,  let 
those  to  others  than  the  young  lady  go  without  reading 
them  myself,  for  they  might  mean  mischief.  Intending  to 
take  proper  legal  proceedings  the  next  day,  I  had  him 
placed  in  a  small  room  leading  out  from  my  sleeping-room, 
and  without  a  door  except  that  into  my  room,  and  with  no 
avenue  for  light,  save  a  small  window  at  the  top,  divested 
him  of  his  clothes,  which  I  put  back  of  my  bed,  and  caused 
my  door  to  be  guarded  outside  all  night.  I  suppose  I  slept 
with  unusual  soundness,  for  I  heard  not  the  slightest  noise 
from  his  room.  On  awaking  in  the  morning  I  called  to  him. 
There  was  no  answer ;  and  I  jumped  out  of  bed,  and  went 
into  his  room,  only  to  find  him  hanging,  cold  and  dead, 
from  a  clothes  peg  in  the  side  of  the  wall  in  the  room !  He 
had  somehow  managed  to  strip  a  piece  from  a  sheet  with- 
out awakening  me,  rolled  it  into  a  small  rope,  and  hung 
himself  by  this  peg.  He  proved  himself  a  young  man  of 
spirit  in  his  last  act,  for  his  legs  were  bent  up  to  keep  his 
feet  from  the  floor  —  the  rope  beinf*  too  long,  or  having 
stretched  evidently. 

Such  was  the  end  of  the  music  teacher;  and  not  the 
least  interesting  fact  touching  him  Avas,  that  he  was  from 
one  of  the  first  New  England  families,  well  educated, expelled 
college  in  his  second  year  ibr  some  "  romantic  conduct" 
which  bordered  on  crime,  and  was  shunned  by  his  high- 
toned  Puritanic  relations, —  mercilessly  treated,  in  short, — 
and  to  this  fact,  I  conceive,  may  be  attributed  his  downfall 
in  part.  Mercy  and  forgiveness,  bestowed  at  the  proper 
time,  are  among  the  best  preventives  of  a  course  of  crime 
once  entered  upon. 

The  music  teacher's  letters  were  never  sent  to  their 
intended  destinations.  That  to  the  young  lady  was  very 
kindly,  telling  her  that  his  love  for  her  was  an  infatuation, 
from  which  he  had  broken  away ;  that  they  were  not  suited 


THE   NIECE   MARRIED.  441 

to  live  together  after  all ;  that  she  would  probably  never 
hear  from  him  again,  for  years  at  least  (!),  and  that  he 
hoped  her  every  joy.  I  did  not  think  it  best  to  forward 
it  to  her.  She  married,  in  a  year  or  two  after  his  "  deser- 
tion," to  a  fine  man,  so  "  Mr.  Perkins,"  when  I  last  saw  him, 
told  me,  and  was  very  happy,  and  still  in  blissful  ignorance 
of  the  fate  of  the  "  heartless  "  but  brilliant  music  teacher, 
and  finally  brave  (?)  suicide. 


THE  COOL-BLOODED  GOLD  ROBBER,  AND 
THE  WAY  HE  WAS  TRACKED. 


A   SUDDEN    CALL  —  GREAT    CONSTERNATION    AT    THE  BANK    IN    WALL 

STREET  —  TEN  THOUSAND  DOLLARS  IN  GOLD  STOLEN  —  A  HARD,  INSOLU- 
BLE CASE — "TRY,"  THE  SOUL  OF  SUCCESS — BANKS  COMPELLED  TO 
GREATEST  CAUTIOUSNESS  —  NO  ESPRIT  DE  CORPS  AMONG  MONEY-CHAN- 
GERS —  THE  WAT  i  "  CREATED"  DETECTIVES  —  RAG-PICKERS  MADE  USE- 
FUL ABOVE  THEIR  CALLING  —  AN  UP-TOWN  CARRIAGE  HOUSE,  AND  ITS 
TREASURES  —  A  LAUGHING  COACHMAN  —  A  PRESENT  —  COMPLICATED 

EVIDENCE  UNRAVELLED AN   OLD  OFFICE-WOMAN  INVOLVED  IN  THE 

MYSTERY  —  A  BIT  OF  FUN  FURNISHES  THE  DESIRED  "  KEY  "  —  "  8MOUCH- 
ISG,"  AND  WHAT  CAME  OF  IT  —  EXTENDING  MY  ACQUAINTANCESHIP  — 
THE  THIEF  FOUND  —  A  WALL  STREET  BROKER —  STUDYING  HIM — HIS 
CLERK  WILED  AWAY  —  GOOD  USE  OF  THEATRE  TICKETS  —  THE  SCHEME 
OF  IDENTIFICATION;  A  PLOT  WITHIN  A  PLOT  —  THE  BROKER  WORSTED 
—  HE  STRUGGLES  WITHIN  HIMSELF;  GROWS  PALE  —  HOW  HE  EXECUTED 
THE  ROBBERY  —  THE  TERRIBLE  "FORCE  OF  EXAMPLE"  SOMETIMES  — 
THE  THIEF  BECOMES  A  MEMBER  OF  THE  COMMON  COUNCIL  —  A  SALUTARY 
WARNING  TO  OTHER  THIEVES. 

"  SIR,  can  you  come  right  down  at  once  to  the 

Bank?"  (It  was  and  is  in  Wall  Street.)  "Mr. (the  presi- 
dent) wants  to  see  you  if  possible,"  exclaimed  a  messenger, 
one  day,  less  than  ten  years  ago,  as  he  bolted  into  my  office 
in  great  haste  ;  and  this  was  the  opening  to  me  of  a, case 
in  which  I  did,  perhaps,  more  hard  work  than  I  ever  per- 
formed in  working  out  any  other  case. 

"  No,  I  can't  go  now  ;  don't  think  I  can  get  there  to- 
day. I've  too  much  to  do;  but  what's  the  trouble?" 

"  0,  dear,  I  can't  tell  you  that.  I  only  know  that  Mr. 

,  the  president,  is  greatly  excited,  and  he  told  me  to 

be  sure  to  bring  you  now ;  to  hunt  after  you  if.  you  were 
not  here,  and  bring  you  at  any  rate." 

442 


ABOUT  THE  BAG  OF  GOLD.          443 

"  Well,  if  it  is  so  urgent  a  matter,  I  must  run  down  there 
for  a  minute  —  say  that  I'll  be  there  in  a  half  hour,  if  pos- 
sible ;  if  not,  in  an  hour,  say.  I've  documents  here  that 
must  be  finished  and  sent  off  before  I  stir,"  said  I ;  and  an 
hour  or  so  brought  me  to  the  bank,  between  four  and  five 
o'clock  of  the  afternoon.  It  was  closed,  of  course,  for 
banking  purposes,  but  the  watching  janitor  hardly  waited 
for  ordinary  ceremony  before  I  was  half-dragged  into  the 
entrance-way.  The  president  at  once  took  me  to  the  pri- 
vate or  directors'  room,  and  told  me  that  a  half  hour  be- 
fore sending  for  me  they  had  missed  a  bag  containing  tea 
thousand  dollars  in  gold,  that  every  search  had  been  made 
for  it,  and  that  one  of  the  clerks  thought  he  recollected 
something  having  been  said  by  somebody  that  day  about 
that  bag.  He  even  thought  somebody  had  taken  it  up  or 
out  in  his  presence,  but  his  impression  was  like  a  dim  rec- 
ollection of  things  passed  twenty  years  ago,  and  this  was 
all  the  president  could  say  about  it.  The  making  up  of 
the  books,  balancing  accounts,  etc.,  had  kept  the  clerks 
after  banking  hours,  as  usual,  and  he  had  sent  for  me  as 
soon  as  possible,  thinking  that  I  might  devise  some  theory 
to  account  for  the  lost  gold,  and  that  promptness  was  the 
best  course. 

I  asked  if  there  had  been  much  business  done  there 
that  day,  and  I  found  that  they  had  been  unusually  occu- 
pied. I  learned  the  location  of  the  bag  in  the  big  safe, 
and  saw  that  no  thief  could  have  come  slyly  in  and  got  to 
the  safe  without  being  detected,  so  numerous  were  the 
clerks,  some  of  whom  were  constantly  behind  the  desks, 
back  of  which  the  thief  would  have  to  go.  There  was  no 
clerk  whom  the  president  dare  suspect.  They  were  all 
well  tried  young  men,  in  whom  every  confidence  had  here- 
tofore been  reposed,  and  who  had  ever  proved  worthy  of 
the  trust  placed  in  them.  Besides,  none  of  them,  except 
at  noon,  when  they  had  gone  out  to  lunch,  not  singly,  but 
two  together  at  least,  had  been  out  of  the  bank  since  morn- 
ing, and  it  was  sure  that  the  bag  was  in  the  safe  that 
26 


444  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

morning.  In  fact,  it  had  then  been  brought  there  from 
the  vault,  with  other  moneys ;  so  that  to  suspect  any  one, 
rendered  it  necessary  to  suspect  another  in  concert  with 
him.  Moreover,  if  one  had  been  in  concert  with  a  thief, 
who  had  come  in  to  receive  the  bag,  he  could  hardly  have 
taken  the  bag  out  without  some  one's  noticing  him. 

With  these  reflections  and  my  examinations,  I  candidly 
told  the  president  that  it  would  cost  too  much  to  work  up 
the  case  on  any  theory  which  I  could  conceive  of;  that 
his  only  hope  was  in  waiting  for  something  to  be  disclosed 
by  accident,  perhaps ;  but  that  he  probably  would  never 
hear  of  the  money,  or  know  any  more  about  the  matter 
than  he  now  knew,  unless  this  suspicion  of  mine  should 
happen  to  be  correct  (but  how  could  we  be  sure  of  that?), 
namely,  that  the  abstraction  of  this  gold  was  the  work 
of  some  bold  thief,  who,  having  studied  the  place,  and  giv- 
ing himself  a  clerkly  style,  had  suddenly  dropped  in  when 
the  bank  was  full  of  customers  and  the  clerks  much  oc- 
cupied, and  passed  himself  off  for  one  of  them  for  a  few 
seconds,  taken  the  bag,  and  walked  off  with  it  as  coolly  as 
lie  came  in. 

But  the  president,  and  I  too,  after  surveying  matters 
again,  conceived  that  an  impossibility — "almost"  —  still 
there  was  the  barest  possibility  that  such  might  have  been 
the  fact.  But  if  it  were,  how  get  a  clew  to  the  thief? 
How  ever  identify  one  dollar,  or  rather  a  single  one  .of 
the  ten  dollar  pieces  ?  (for  it  was  all  in  ten  dollar  pieces,  in 
rolls :  a  heavy  bag  to  snatch  and  carry  away  unperceived). 
There  was  a  serious  difficulty  in  that. 

Of  course  I  made  the  minutest  inquiry  as  to  the  style 
•of  the  bag,  and  was  shown  three  or  four  which  were  said 
to  be  exactly  like  it,  and  took  down  upon  my  diary  a  copy 
of  the  special  marks  upon  these.  But  I  kept  thinking  all 
the  while  that  it  was  folly  to  do  this;  and  I  dismissed 
reasoning  upon  the  subject,  and  thought  I  might  as  well 
"  trust  luck  "  as  to  refuse  to,  especially  as  the  president, 
in  his  urgency,  said  if  I  would  "  scour  the  city  thoroughly," 


PERFECT   SECRECY.  445 

he  would  pay  me  so  much  a  day  for  my  time,  for  a  given 
number  of  days,  and  that  if  I  found  any  of  the  money  I 
might  have  half  of  it  besides.  I  told  him  his  offer  was 
hardly  acceptable  professionally ;  that  I  had  my  certain 
charges  for  my  work  by  the  day,  dependent  in  amount  a 
little  upon  the  nature  of  the  case,  and  that  that  would  sat- 
isfy me  ;  and  that  although  I  had  about  as  much  confidence 
in  finding  out  the  thief,  or  discovering  the  money,  as  I 
would  have  in  labelling  a  plank  "  Philadelphia,"  and  throw- 
ing it  into  the  bay  at  ebb  tide,  with  the  expectation  it 
would  float  directly  to  the  "  City  of  Brotherly  Love,"  and 
laud  itself  duly ;  yet  I  would  try. 

"  Well,  that's  all  I  can  ask.  '  Try/  that's  the  word," 
said  the  president ;  "  and  allow  me  to  say  that  I  know  that 
means  something  with  you,  and  1^  cannot  say  why  I  feel  a 
confidence  that  you  will  succeed,  for  everything  seems  to 
be  against  us.  Yet  I  do  feel  that  success  in  part,  at  least, 
will  be  yours.  We  shall  hear  where  that  money  has  gone 
to,  even  if  we  cannot  secure  a  dollar  of  it.  But  there 
must  nothing  be  said  outside  of  the  bank.  I  cautioned  the 
clerks  before  you  came ;  for  in  my  whole  life  I  have  never 
been  more  ashamed  of  anything  than  of  this  loss,  whether 
it  is  the  theft  of  one  person,  clerk,  or  what  not,  or  another: 
and  if  it  should  be  the  fact  that  this  is  only  one  of  those 
bold  robberies  which  have  sometimes  taken  place,  I  should 
feel  more  chagrined  than  ever." 

So  I  was  to  keep  the  matter  a  profound  secret,  at  any 
rate  ;  which  is  the  reason  why  I  may  not  at  least  introduce 
a  name  or  two,  which  I  should,  for  some  reasons,  be  pleased 
to  make  public. 

It  is  not  a  wise  thing  for  a  bank  to  make  known  to  the 
public  a  loss  of  the  kind.  It  looks  like  negligence  in  the 
conduct  of.  its  affairs.  The  public,  too,  would  be  disposed 
to  think,  even  when  the  truth  is  told,  that  the  statement 
is  intended  to  cover  the  fact  of  a  greater  loss,  or  that  a 
defalcation  for  example,  instead  of  a  robbery,  has  taken 
place.  There  is  nothing  like  an  esprit  de  corps  among 


446  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

banks.  Each  acts  for  itself,  —  mercilessly,  as  regards 
every  other  bank,  —  unless,  perliaps,  when  some  question 
of  a  proposed  general  tax,  which  may  be  thought  too  high, 
is  mooted ;  and  each  must  look  out  for  its  reputation  for 
soundness  with  scrupulous  care. 

Time  went  on,  and,  engrossed  in  other  affairs,  I  paid  but 
little  heed  to  this,  comparatively,  though  I  did  "  try."  My 
first  step  was  to  visit  several  of  the  rag-gatherers  and 
purchasers  about  the  city,  and  ofler  a  large  reward  to 
each  of  them  should  he  chance  to  become  possessed  of  a 
peculiarly  marked  bag  (which  I  described),  in  such  a  man- 
ner as  to  be  able  to  trace  its  history  into  his  hands.  In 
this  way  I  made  "  detectives  "  of  quite  a  number  of  per- 
s6*ns.  I  suspected  that  the  thief  would,  of  course,  destroy 
the  bag,  yet  I  thought  it  possible  that,  in  the  flush  of  his 
success,  he  might  throw  it  by,  and  that  with  other  things 
—  old  papers  perhaps  —  it  might  get  to  the  old  rag  and 
paper  men's  hands.  Besides,  I  visited  certain  points  where 
thieves  resort,  and  certain  gambling  saloons,  with  the  in- 
tent of  seeing  if  anybody  there  was  peculiarly  "  flush  " 
with  gold,  and  I  secured  the  assistance  of  certain  brethren 
of  the  profession  to  the  same  end.  But  I  could  learn  of 
nobody  who  seemed  to  have  had  a  "  windfall "  of  late,  and 
it  was  so  long  before  I  got  the  slightest  report  from  any 
of  the  rag-men,  that,  when  I  did,  I  suspected  that  the  money 
would  be  dissipated,  or  so  "  scattered  to  the  four  winds," 
even  if  it  led  to  the  fastening  of  suspicion  upon  somebody, 
that  I  had  but  lit.tle  impulse  to  pursue  the  matter. 

But  finally,  a  dealer  in  rags  sought  me,  saying  that  he 
had  come  across  the  bag  in  question,  he  thought,  but  that 
it  was  not  in  his  possession,  and  he  had  not  thought  it 
best  to  try  to  get  hold  of  it  till  I  had  seen  it.  It  was  in 
an  up-town  carriage-house,  the  latter  belonging  to  one  of 
the  old  aristocracy,  and  he  suspected  the  bag  belonged  to 
the  coachmnn.  He  had  been  called  into  the  house,  in  tlio 
prosecution  of  his  business,  to  buy  several  bags  of  old 
-»,  paper,  etc.,  and  as  the  rags,  old  clothes,  etc.,  were 


PRIVATE   "SURVEYING."  447 

promiscuously  thrown  together  into  the  bags,  without  refer- 
ence to  color  or  quality,  it  was  difficult  to  put  a  price  upon 
them ;  the  white  ones  predominating,  the  housekeeper 
would  not  sell  them  for  the  price  he  would  give  for  unas- 
sorted rags,  and  so  the  bags  were  taken  to  the  carriage- 
house,  to  be  assorted  and  weighed  there.  While  engaged 
with  the  stable-man  and  one  of  the  servant  girls  in  running 
over  the  rags,  his  eye  happened  to  light  upon  a  bag  tied 
with  a  string,  and  hanging  on  a  peg,  which  he  saw,  by  a 
peculiar  mark,  must  be  like  the  one  I  had  described  to  him 
so  long  before;  and  he  asked  the  stable-man  what  was  kept 
in  that  bag  hung  up  so  nicely,  and  got  the  reply  that  it 
held  some  of  the  coachman's  knickknacks ;  and  he  thought 
best,  to  make  no  further  inquiries  then;  but,  putting  his 
hand  upon  it,  he  found  it  held  several  things  which  "  felt 
hard,  like  iron ;  "  and  this  was  all  he  knew  about  it,  save 
that  he,  at  the  time  he  felt  of  it,  took  occasion  to  examine 
the  marks  upon  it  further,  and  felt  assured  that  it  was  just 
the  bag  in  question.  He  was  quite  enthusiastic  over  his 
discovery,  and  wished  me  to  go  at  once,  and  look  for 
myselfl 

But  I  could  not  leave  that  day,  and  making  an  appoint- 
ment with  him  for  the  next  day,  met  him  as. agreed,  and 
proceeded  to  the  carriage  house.  Fortunately  we  got  in, 
without  being  under  the  necessity  of  asking  to  have  the 
gate  opened,  as  we  watched  an  opportunity  when  the  car- 
riage was  about  being  driven  out.  My  friend  the  rag-man 
engineered  the  entree  under  my  instructions,  referring  to 
his  having  assorted  rags  there  a  day  or  two  before,  and 
easily  got  on  the  good  side  of  the  coachman,  while  I 
looked  after  the  bag,  which  my  friend  had  told  me  where 
to  find  without  trouble.  1  made  up  my  mind  instantly  that 
that  was  the  bag  in  question,  and  sitting  down  lazily  on  a 
box  in  the  carriage-house,  got  into  a  good-natured  talk 
with  the  coachman.  It  was  easy  to  be  seen  that  he  w;n 
an  innocent  enough  fellow,  and  could  never  have  been 
guilty  of  the  robbery,  or  of  complicity  therein.  But  I  was 


448  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

at  a  loss  to  know  how  to  approach  him  on  the  subject  of 
the  bag.  At  last  I  got  up  and  walked  about,  and  survey- 
ing the  tilings,  —  various  carriages,  light  buggies,  harness- 
es, etc.,  in  the  barn,  which  the  coachman  was  pleased 
enough  to  hear  me  compliment  on  their  order  and  neat- 
ness, etc.,  —  I  at  length  listlessly  approached  the  bag, 
and  tqking  hold  of  it,  said,  "  Well,  that's  a  funny  mark 
—  coat  of  arms,  I  'spose  ?  "  giving  the  coachman  a  slight 
wink. 

lie  laughed  in  his  easy-going  way,  and  said,  "  You're 
disposed  to  joke,  I  see.  No,  that's  not  my  coat  of  arms ;  I 
could  not  afford  it  —  he  !  he  I  he  1  —  but  it's  my  bag,  I 
confess." 

"  I've  got  one  just  like  it  at  home,"  said  I ;  "  pretty  good 
bag  to  wear.  I  wonder  where  a  fellow  could  get  another 
like  it  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know.  I  got  that  off  a  heap  of  rags,  in  a  cart 
that  was  standing  on  the  corner  here  one  morning,  two  or 
three  weeks  ago,  —  gave  the  boy  six  cents  for  it.  Don't 
know  where  you  could  get  another." 

"  What  will  you  take  for  it?  " 

"  He  !  he  !  hee  1 "  exclaimed  the  coachman,  bursting  with 
laughter,  as  if  I  had  said  a  comical  thing.  "  Why,  do  you 
take  me  for  a  rag-dealer?  he  !  he  1  he  I  I  wouldn't  sell  it 
for  nothing ;  but  do  you  want  it  much  ?  " 

"  O,  no,  not  much,  but  I  should  like  it  ?  want  it  badly 
enough  to  pay  you  for  it  —  what  you've  a  mind  to  ask." 

"Wai,  I'll  give  it  to  you.  I  thought  that  morning  I 
wanted  it  to  put  screws  and  bolts  in,  but  I've  got  a  nice 
stand  here  since,  and  I  can  throw  'em  in  the  drawer,"  as  he 
•pointed  out  the  "  stand,"  and  proceeded  to  take  down  the 
bag  and  pour  the  bolts,  etc.,  into  the  drawer,  and  handing 
tin-  bag  to  me,  said,  "Here,  I'll  make  you  a  present  of  this 
'ere  thing,  —  he  !  he  !  hee  ! "  I  took  it,  of  course,  and 
thanked  him. 

Having  got  the  bag  into  n»'y  possession,  I  asked  him  if  he 
ever  saw  the  man  before  of  whom  he  bought  the  bag. 


THE    "TARNAL"   STRIPED   DOG.  449 

"  'Twasn't  a  man,  but  a  boy,  that  goes  by  here,  every 
few  days,  with  a  cart." 

"  Would  you  know  him  anywhere  you  might  see  him  ?  " 

"  Yes,  he's  got  a  curious  look  about  him  that  everybody 
would  remember." 

"  You've  seen  him  often?" 

"  Yes.  I  have  seen  him  go  by  here  ever  so  many  times 
within  a  year." 

"  Well,  I  want  to  find  him ;  and  can  I  hire  you  to  go 
with  me  to-day  and  pick  him  out  ?  I'll  take  you  among 
the  rag-pickers,  and  I  will  pay  you  well." 

"  He  !  he  !  hee  I  That's  funny  that  you  want  to  find  that 
nasty-looking  chap.  Yes,  I'll  go  with  you  now,  —  in  ten 
minutes,  if  'tain't  too  fur." 

"  We  can  go  in  an  hour;  but  perhaps  'twon't  be  the  best 
time  to  find  him.  He  may  be  out,  and  we  shall  not  know 
whom  to  inquire  for ;  and  if  we  get  on  track  of  anybody 
that  we  think  is  he,  may  be  you'll  have  to  go  again  to- 
morrow. They'll  tell  us  when  he'll  be  apt  to  be  found  at 
home." 

"  I'd  know  him  by  his  dog,  say  nothing  of  himself,"  in- 
terposed the  coachman.  "  Yes,  I'll  go;"  and  the  coachman 
got  ready,  and  we  started  off  for  Sixty-second  Street, 
where  there  were  then  a  number  of  low  houses,  occupied 
by  rag-pickers.  I  thought  I  would  go  up  instead  of  down 
in  the  city,  as  the  coachman  said  the  loaded  cart  of  the 
rag-man  was  headed  that  way.  We  took  a  Fourth  Avenue 
car,  and  had  not  gone  more  than  half  way  to  our  point  of 
destination,  when  the  coachman,  who  was  standing  on  the 
platform,  having  given  his  seat  to  a  lady,  violently  pulled 
the  bell,  and  called  to  me :  "  See  here,  mister"  (for  I  had 
given  him  no  name  as  yet),  "  here's  the  very  fellow  we're 
after ;  ".  and  I  got  out  with  him,  and  he  ran  to  catch  the 
rag-man,  whom  we  had  just  past,  and  I  came  up  as  he  had 
stopped  him. 

"  This  is  the  man,  and  that's  the  tarnal  striped  dog  I 
told  you  of.  See  here  "  (to  the  rag-man) ;  "this  man  wants 
to  see  you." 


450  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

The  rag-man  looked  at  me  with  wonder  and  some  ex- 
pression of  fear.  "  Let  him  see  me,  then,  if  he  wants  to," 
he  muttered ;  "  no  great  sight,  I  guess." 

"  Yes,  I  wished  to  see  you  a  minute,"  said  I ;  "  and  I 
wanted  to  talk  with  you.  I  won't  hinder  you  long,  and 
Avill  give  you  twenty-five  cents  an  hour  for  the  time  I 
hinder  you.  Here,  take  that  to  begin  with,"  slipping  a 
new  twenty-five  cent  piece  of  silver  into  his  hand.  The 
rag-man's  eyes  glistened,  and  he  looked  up  with  an  air  of 
mingled  surprise  and  gratitude. 

"  Your  route  "  (for  all  these  fellows  have  routes  of  their 
own,  which  they  observe  with  as  much  honor  among  them- 
selves as  bakers  and  milkmen,  never  trespassing  on  each 
other),  —  "your  route  lies,  when  you  go  up,  along  such  and 
such  streets  ?  "  —  naming  some. 

"  Yes,  sir." 

"  Well,  did  you  ever  see  this  man  before  ?  "  pointing  to 
the  coachman." 

He  eyed  him  carefully,  and  replied,  "  'Pears  to  me  I 
have ;  but  I  dunno." 

"  Well,  did  you  ever  see  this  bag  ?  "  I  asked,  taking  it 
from  my  pocket,  and  handing  it  to  him. 

He  looked  at  it  but  an  instant,  and  said,  "  Yes ;  and 
I  guess  that's  the  man  that  give  me  six  cents  for  it ;  yes, 
that  is  the  man." 

"  Well,  my  good  fellow,"  said  I,  "  I  want  to  find  out 
where  you  bought  it.  That's  what  I  hunted  you  up  to  in- 
quire about.  I  want  to  find  the  man  that  sold  it  to  you." 

The  rag  man's  memory  was  good,  and  he  told  me  where 
he  got  the  bag.  It  was  among  the  last  things  he  pur- 
chased the  day  he  sold  it  to  the  coachman  ;  and  there  was 
something  about  it  peculiar,  in  this,  that  the  rag-man, 
grumbling  a  little  at  the  price  he  had  paid  for  a  few 
pounds  of  rags,  —  some  few  cents, —  the  old  woman  nf 
whom  he  bought  them  threw  that  in,  and  told  him  to  "  go 
'long." 

I  dismissed  the  coachman,  offering  to  pay  him  for  his 


WHERE  IT    CAME  FROM.  451 

time,  but  he  would  take  nothing ;  and  I  went  on  with  the 
rag-man  and  his  striped  dog.  But  it  was  slow  work,  ami 
we  had  some  distance  to  go ;  so  I  assisted  him  in  getting 
his  cart  and  dog  housed  in  a  livery  stable  on  our  course, 
and  took  the  cars,  and  soon  found  the  old  woman,  a  gath- 
erer up  of  old  odds  and  ends,  living  in  Bayard  Street,  just 
out  of  the  Bowery.  She  traded  a  "  good  deal,"  she  said, 
"  with  William,  here  "  (the  rag-man),  "  off  and  on." 

1  brought  the  matter  of  the  bag  to  her  notice.  She  re- 
membered it  well ;  and  the  next  thing  was  to  ask  where 
she  got  it.  That  she  could  tell  me,  too.  She  had  a  daugh- 
ter living  in  a  building  in  Pine  Street,  below  William,  and 
it  was  she  who  sold  it  to  her  mother,  with  a  lot  of  old  rags 
and  papers.  "  It  corned  to  me,"  said  she,  "  in  the  pile  I 
had  from  her." 

On  inquiry,  I  found  that  the  purchase  had  been  made,  as 
near  as  I  could  calculate,  about  three  days  after  the  rob- 
bery. I  employed  the  old  woman  to  go  down  to  introduce 
me  to  her  daughter,  whom  I  found  to  be  a  very  good,  hon- 
est woman,  who  got  a  living  by  cleaning  down-town 
offices,  while  her  husband  did  a  little  private  watching, 
now  and  then,  and  helped  "  along  shore  "  a  little. 

The  woman  being  introduced  to  me  by  her  mother,  who 
said  I  was  an  old  friend  of  hers  (as  I  had  asked  her  to;  for 
I  had  given  her  some  slight  hint  of  why  I  wanted  to  learn 
where  the  daughter  got  the  bag,  and  had  paid  her  before- 
hand for  her  time  in  waiting  on  me),  made  ready  reply  to 
my  queries. 

"  Yes,  yes ;  now  I  do  remember,"  said  she,  scratching 
her  forehead  in  a  peculiar  way  with  her  stubbed  fingers, 

"  where  I  got  that ;  it  was  that  sassy  brat  in  's 

office  gin  it  to  me." 

"  Where's  that  ?  " 

Her  reply  gave  me  the  number  of  a  broker's  office  in 
Wall  Street,  and  things  began  at  once  to  shape  themselves 
in  my  mind.  If  I  had  not  been  a  detective,  I  might  have 
been  surprised;  but  it  was  easy  now  to  form  an  intelligi- 

18 


452  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

ble  theory.  I  did  not  know  this  man,  and  made  no  inqui- 
ries about  him  of  the  woman ;  but  1  asked  her  how  the  boy 
came  to  give  it  to  her. 

"  He  ain't  a  young  boy,"  replied  she ;  "  he's  full-growed, 
and  has  got  whiskers,  —  side  whiskers,  —  but  he's  full  of 
old  Ned,  and  acts  like  a  boy,  poking  fun  all  the  while  ; 
and  I  call  him  a  boy.  Well,  he  gin  it  to  me  one  night,  — 
let's  see,"  —  and  she  went  over  the  list  of  names  of  offices 
where  she  had  worked,  and  said,  "  Yes,  it  was  Friday,"— 
fixing  a  time  just  the  day  after  the  robbery.  She  was 
there,  it  seems,  just  after  business  hours  were  over,  to 
clean  the  room.  Her  day  there  was  Saturday,  generally, 
instead  of  Friday,  and  she  went  three  times  a  week  usu- 
ally, arid  washed  and  mopped.  Being  a  jolly  woman,  she 
was  bantering  with  the  "  boy  "  (clerk),  as  she  called  him, 
who  had  staid  to  lock  up  after  her.  The  clerk  had  thrown 
some  old  papers  upon  her,  which  he  gave  her  to  carry  oft', 
and  she'd  made  a  wad  of  some  of  them,  and  thrown  them 
back  to  him  ;  and  so  they  had  "  smouched  "  each  other,  — 
as  she  termed  that  sort  of  play,  —  when  just  as  she  was 
going  out,  the  clerk  seized  this  bag  from  under  the  coun- 
ter, and  threw  it,  rolled  up,  at  her  head.  She  seized  it,  and 
said,  "  Thank  you ;  this  will  do  to  bile  puddings  in ;  I'll 
take  it." 

"  Take  it,  Sarah,"  said  he  ;  "  and  we'll  call  it  quits  for 
now,"  as  she  left  the  office. 

That  was  her  circumstantial  account.  I  was  glad,  of 
course,  to  find  her  memory  so  clear.  There  was  no  mis- 
taking that  evidence.  The  next  step  was  to  make  the 
acquaintance  of  that  boy,  or  clerk ;  and  to  do  so,  I  went 
next  day  into  the  broker's  office  to  get  some  money 
changed.  The  clerk  was  in  ;  and  after  doing  my  business, 
I  got  into  some  conversation  with  him,  —  for  I  had  taken 
an  early  hour  when  I  knew  there  would  be  few  customers 
in.  I  found  him  apparently  an  excellent  young  man,  good- 
lu-urted,  intelligent,  and  honest,  I  thought.  His  employer 
was  not  in  ;  but  I  called  at  a  later  hour  of  the  day,  having 


KEEPING   DARK.  453 

watched  the  premises,  and  seen  the  clerk  go  out  on  some 
errand,  and  got  some  money  changed  by  the  broker ;  and 
I  studied  him  as  well  as  I  could.  Ho  was  a  wiry  man, 
of  medium  size,  with  much  determination  in  his  face,  in- 
dicated particularly  by  one  of  those  protruding  chins, 
which  disclose  not  only  force  of  character,  but  the  ability 
to  do  mean,  desperate  things. 

My  mind  was  made  up  that  the  broker  was  the  man  who 
stole  the  money  —  such  was  my  fixed  opinion  ;  and  now 
how  to  trap  him.  The  clerk  was  an  honest  young  man ;  of 
that  I  was  quite  satisfied.  The  broker  could  not,  I  thought, 
be  doing  a  large  business,  and  his  face  did  not  indicate 
that  liberality  which  would  allow  his  giving  his  clerk  (and 
he  had  but  one,  in  his  little  basement  den  of  an  office) 
a  large  salary,  and  I  made  up  my  mind  that  the  first  step 
was  to  get  the  clerk  out  of  that  office  into  some  other 
place,  by  giving  him  a  larger  salary. 

At  this  juncture  of  affairs  I  sought  the  president,  and 
told  him  that  I  had  traced  the  matter  into  a  Wall  Street 
broker's  office;  but  did  not  at  that  time  tell  him  where ; 
that  there  was  a  clerk  in  the  office  who  was  evidently  a 
very  nice  and  efficient  fellow,  and  that  1  wanted  to  get 
him  out  of  there  as  the  next  step ;  that  he  was  surely  a 
good  penman,  and  probably  a  first-rate  bookkeeper ;  and 
he  must  find  a  place  for  him,  and  I  would  try  to  get  him  out. 

To  this  the  president  quickly  consented,  and  told  me  to 
call  next  day,  and  he  would  have  some  place  or  other  for 
him,  among  some  of  his  friends.  We  discussed  what  a 
clerk  probably  got  a  year  in  such  a  place ;  and  decided 
that  two  hundred  dollars  more  would  be  bribe  enough  for 
him.  "  And  I'll  do  better  than  that  for  him,  if  necessary," 
said  the  president.  "  Now  tell  me  who  this  broker  is,  if 
you  please." 

I  declined  to  tell  him  then,  for  I  wished  to  get  my  evi- 
dence a  little  more  certain.  I  called  the  next  day  as  he 
told  me,  and  found  that  he  had  been  active,  and  had  se- 
cured thr^e  or  four  places  for  the  young  man,  should  I  find 


4o4  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

it  necessary  to  get  him  into  one.  I  lost  no  time  in  coming 
upon  the  young  man  that  day,  as  he  went  out  to  his  cus- 
tomary lunch,  and  walked  along  with  him,  managing  to 
address  myself  to  his  jocose  nature,  and  we  sat  beside 
each  other  on  stools  at  the  restaurant.  I  went  out  with 
him,  and  a  part  of  the  way  to  his  office  with  him  too,  when, 
stopping  suddenly,  I  said, — 

"  I  must  go  another  way ;  hope  to  meet  you  again  ;  "  and 
drawing  my  handkerchief  suddenly  from  the  outer  breast 
pocket  of  my  coat,  as  if  to  wipe  my  mouth,  flirted  out  with 
it  some  tickets,  three  of  them  to  Wallack's  Theatre,  with 
which  I  had  prepared  myself  for  the  purpose.  These  were 
"  complimentaries,"  with  which  I  was  not  unfrequently 
supplied,  in  view  of  some  services  I  had  once  rendered 
Mr.  James  Wallack,  in  a  matter  involving  no  small  amount 
of  jewel;*,  etc. 

I  picked  up  the  tickets  as  they  fell  to  the  pavement,  and, 
said  I,  "This  is  providential  for  you,  perhaps.  I  see  you 
like  fun  ;  there's  a  good  comedy  on  to-night ;  would  you 
like  to  go?  "  handing  him  one  of  the  tickets.  "  And  here's 
another ;  may  bo  you'd  like  to  take  your  lady." 

"  Ho,  ho ! "  said  he,  "  that's  generous  ;  but  I  won't  take 
but  one,  for  I  haven't  any  lady  to  take." 

"  Well,  give  one  to  some  friend,  and  take  him  along ;  " 
but  he  declined,  and  the  upshot  of  the  matter  was,  that  he 
agreed  to  meet  me  at  the  Metropolitan  that  night,  and  go 
with  me.  I  told  him  to  keep  his  tickets,  and  bring  along 
any  friend.  But  he  came  alone,  and  I  was  glad  of  it.  The 
play  was  excellent,  and  between  acts  we  discussed  it.  I 
fancied  I  had  gotten  well  into  his  good  graces  before  it 
was  over;  and  when  it  was,  we  walked  out,  and  along 
Broadway  together,  and  stopped  once  or  twice  and  <;  lem- 
onaded."  The  young  man  was  temperate,  as  I  was  glad  to 
find  —  all  the  better  witness  —  and  before  he  reached  home 
that  night,  I  managed  to  find  out  all  about  his  salary,  etc., 
and  had  told  him  that  a  young  man  of  his  parts  ought  to 
have  a  better  place.  He  felt  so  too,  of  course  ;•  but  said 


A   NOVEL   COAT   OF   ABMS.  455 

it  was  hard  to  find,  as  he  had  no  friends  to  help  him.  Un- 
fortunately, he  said,  all  his  relatives  in  New  York  were 
of  the  medium  class  of  people  in  money  matters  ;  and  his 
father,  who  was  "a  Methodist  minister,  and  had  some  in- 
fluence with  his  people  when  living,  had  died  some  five 
years  before,  and  these  church  people  had  pretty  much 
forgotten  them. 

I  found  that,  from  the  latitude  the  president  had  given 
me,  I  could  offer  the  young  man  a  salary  that  astonished 
him.  He  said  he  could  leave  his  employer  at  any  time, 
with  one  day's  notice,  for  there  were  calls  every  day  for 
employment  by  clerks.  Suffice  it  that  in  four  days  from 
that  time  I  had  the  young  man  installed  as  bookkeeper  in 
a  house  where  he  got  nearly  double  his  former  salary.  Be- 
sides, in  my  going  about  with  himr  I  had  fished  out  facts 
enough  in  the  career  of  the  broker,  his  old  employer,  to 
convince  mo  that  he  was  all  I  had  taken  him  for. 

Finally,  I  went  back  to  the  president,  and  told  him  whom 
I  suspected,  and  what  my  evidence  was,  and  that  I  had 
not  yet  said  anything  to  the  young  man  about  the  bag  or 
about  him  ;  and  we  arranged  it  that  the  young  man  should 
be  invited  to  his  house  by  me  the  next  night ;  which  was 
done,  and  he  accompanied  me.  The  president  had  pre- 
pared a  room  for  a  private  conference,  and  after  I  had  in- 
troduced the  young  man  to  the  president,  and  informed  him 
that  he,  and  not  I,  was  his  benefactor,  to  whom  the  young 
man  expressed  his  gratitude,  I  took  up  a  paper  from  oft' 
the  table  on  which  I  had  placed  it,  and  under  which  I  had 
slyly  tucked  the  bag.  I  had  gotten  the  young  man  seated 
near  the  table.  As  I  lifted  the  paper,  and  noticed  the  bag 
with  its  peculiar  mark  on  it,  I  said  to  the  president, — 

"  Beg  pardon,  Mr. ,  but  this  singular  device  excited 

my  curiosity  ; "  and  I  took  up  the  bag  and  looked  at  it. 
"  Allow  me  to  ask  what  it  is." 

"  0,"  said  he,  "  it's  a  sort  of  private  coat  of  afms.  'Tis  a 
little  curious, isn't  it?  "  and  he  commented  on  it;  and  I, as 


456  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

X 

a  matter  of  politeness,  passed  it  to  the  young  man,  asking, 
"  Did  you  ever  see  anything  like  it  before  ?  " 

"  No,  not  that  I  know  of."  said  he  ;  "  and  yet  there's  some- 
thing familiar  to  me  about  this  bag,"  and  he  turned  it  over. 
"  No,  I  never  saw  this  device  upon  anything !  "  and  he  laid 
it  down,  and  the  conversation  dropped  on  that  point,  and 
we  fell  into  conversation  about  his  old  employer,  the 
amount  of  his  business,  his  habits,  and  so  forth,  and  it  was 
easy  to  see  that  he  had  no  great  respect  for  him.  Finally  I 
led  on  to  the  matter  of  having  seen  the  jolly  scrubber  there, 
the  woman  Sarah,  to  whom  he  had  given  the  bag ;  and 
finding  she  proved  to  be  all  right,  I  said  to  him,  "  Surah 
gave  me  that  bag,  and  that  bag  got  you  your  present  place, 
through  the  kindness  of  Mr. here. 

The  young  man  looked  astonished,  with  a  question  in 
his  eye,  as  if  asking  mo  to  explain . 

"  Well,  I  will  explain.  You  remember  one  day  (fixing 
the  time),  that,  after  office  hours,  when  she  came  there  to 
scrub,  you  and  she  got  into  a  frolic,  and  threw  things  at 
each  other?" 

"  O,  yes,"  said  he,  "  very  well ;  and  I  hauled  the  bag 
out  from  under  the  counter,  and  threw  it  at  her." 

"  Just  so ;  that's  her  story  too.  And  now  I  wish  to  ask 
you  if  you  knew  how  that  bag  got  under  the  counter?" 

"  Why,  certainly.  Mr. "  (his  employer,  the  broker), 

"  took  it  out  of  his  pocket  a  day  or  two  before,  and  tucked 
it  under  there." 

"  What  was  his  condition  that  day  ?  that  is,  what  was 
his  health  ?  " 

"  O,  that  was  one  of  his  nervous  days,  and  he  was  much 
excited." 

"  What  did  he  place  this  bag  with  there  —  what's 
there  ?  " 

"  There's  a  shelf  there  ;  and  the  day  I  gave  it  to  Sarah, 
I  had  been*  putting  some  papers  there,  and  pulled  it  out, 
and  remembered  it." 


"TUTTING  THE   QUESTION."  41>7 

"Then  he  wouldn't  be  apt  to  see  it,  to  remind  him  of 
its  being  there  ?  " 

"  No,  sir,  not  unless  he  stooped  down  to  get  something 
there." 

It  was  evident  to  me,  then,  how  the  broker  had  forgot- 
ten it.  We  managed  to  make  inquiries  enough  to  satisfy 
ourselves  that  the  broker  was  much  excited  at  that  time, 
and  that  he  about  the  same  time  had  made  purchase  of 
some  building  lots  in  "  East  New  York,"  on  Long  Island, 
for  he  speculated  in  real  estate  somewhat,  and  was  a 
pretty  close  man,  and  "  rich  enough,"  as  the  young  man 
thought. 

We  had  obtained  all  the  evidence  we  were  likely  to,  and 
the  young  man  and  I  left,  he  being  in  ignorance  of  how 
and  to  what  end  we  had  gotten  that  bag  there.  The  next 
step  was  to  get  at  the  broker.  We  examined  into  his  real 
estate,  and  ftnmd  the  young  man  right  in  his  judgment  — 
the  broker  was  well  off.  We  laid  many  plans ;  and  he 
wanted  to  secure  the  money,  and  it  wouldn't  answer  to  do 
things  by  halves.  Our  broker  was  a  desperate  man,  but 
a  nervous  one,  and  I  thought  the  best  way  was  to  take  the 
lion  by  his  mane*  So,  stalking  into  his  office,  —  I  being 
well  armed,  —  1  invited  him  into  his  little  back  room,  hav- 
ing placed  the  president  near  the  office,  to  come  in  a  min- 
ute after  me.  I  engaged  the  broker  in  conversation  for 
half  a  minute,  and  then  suddenly  pulling  out  the  bag, 
asked  him  (nodding  my  head  towards  the  other  little  front 
room  where  the  new  clerk  was) ;  and  saying,  "  No  noise, 
unless  you  are  disposed  to  make  it,"  I  asked, — 

"  Did  you  ever  see  that  before,  sir  ?  " 

He  reached  his  hand  for  it,  turning  pale. 

"  No,  I  never  saw  it." 

"  Do  you  know  whose  it  is  ?  " 

"  No,  I  don't,"  half  stammering,  but  with  an  air  of  de- 
cision. Luckily,  just  at  this  time,  the  president  stalked  in. 

"  Here's  a  man  who  will  tell  you  whose  it  is,"  said  I ; 


453  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

and  holding  it  up  to  the  president,  I  asked,  "  Whose  is  this 
bag  ?  " 

"  Mine,"  said  he  ;  "  but  the  gold  that  was  taken  with  it 

was  the  Bank's,"  as  he  eyed  Mr. ,  the  broker, 

sternly  ;  "  and  you  are  the  man  who  took  it." 

"  I  protest,"  said  the  broker,  "  that  I  never  saw  that  bag 
before  ; "  but  his  manner  showed  guilt. 

"  Well,"  said  I,  "  that's  a  question  of  evidence.  Excuse 
me  for  a  moment,  and  be  calm  ;  "  and  I  stepped  to  the  door, 
and  nodded  to  the  old  clerk  to  come  in.  He  came,  and 
the  broker's  astonishment  was  evidently  great. 

"  Did  you  ever  see  that  before  ?  and  where  did  you  first 
see  it?  "  I  asked  of  the  clerk. 

« In  Mr. 's  "  (the  broker's)  "  hands." 

"  Where  did  he  take  it  from,  and  what  did  he  do 
with  it?" 

The  young  man  told  his  simple  story ;  and  I  told  him 
we  would  relieve  him,  and  away  he  went,  still  ignorant  of 
the  theft,  but  probably  wondering  what  it  all  meant. 

I  then  said  to  the  broker,  "  You  are  most  thoroughly 
caught.  That  young  man  is  only  one  of  our  witnesses, 
and  he  does  not  know  of  your  theft  yet.  You  are  sur- 
rounded on  all  sides,  and  I  advise  you  to  send  your  clerk 
out  on  business,  and  settle  up  matters  here  at  once.  We 
want  the  money  back,  and  pay  for  our  time." 

There  was  a  momentary  struggle  in  the  broker's  heart. 
He  was  very  pale,  and  his  firm  set  chin  quivered  for  a 
moment.  He  evidently  took  in  the  whole  situation  of 
affairs ;  but  I  thought  I  would  not  leave  him  wholly  to  his 
unaided  reflections,  and  I  remarked,  for  it  was  all  clear 
now.  of  course,  how  the  thing  had  been  done  :  — 

"  From  the  hour  that  you  personated  a  clerk,  and  coolly 
walked  behind  the  desk  and  took  the  money,  you  must 
understand  that  you  were  known  —  recognized  ;  but  we 
needed  further  proof  to  convict  you.  The  bag  has  supplied 
that,"  (and  I  saw,  as  I  spoke,  that  a  light  went  over  his 
countenance,  as  if  some  purpose  of  his  soul  had  suddenly 


A   REPENTANT.  459 

changed).  "  Had  we  followed  you  up  at  once,  and  found 
this  gold,  we  could  not  have  identified  it ;  and  we  have  fol- 
lowed you,  therefore,  with  tireless  patience,  and  would 
have  pursued  you  for  a  year  yet.  You  see  your  condi- 
tion. We  do  not  wish  to  prosecute  you  criminally,  unless 
you  fprce  us  to  do  so.  You  may  have  stolen  the  money 
under  a  pressure,  or  in  some  hour  of  temptation,  which 
would  never  come  again.  We  want  our  money  and  pay 
for  our  time,  as  I  have  said ;  and  we  do  not  propose  to 
delay  at  all.  Do  you  understand  me?  " 

The  broker  quivered  for  a  moment.  There  was  a  strug- 
gle of  pride  in  his  soul  which  he  gratified  with  an  oathr 
which  I  will  not  repeat  here,  condemning  his  folly  and  him- 
self to"  the  "  bottomless  pit,"  and  then  he  sank  back  in  his 
chair,  and  tears  filled  his  eyes. 

"  Gentlemen,"  said  he,  "  I  give  it  up.  You  are  very 
lenient.  That  gold  has  cursed  me  every  day.  I  was  a 
madman  that  day.  Had  been  drinking  a  little.  It  was 
only  one  stouF  glass  of  brandy,  though,  for  I  seldom  touch 
a  drop  "  (which  I  know  to  be  true).  "I  had  a  month  be- 
fore read  a  story  in  a  London  paper  which sent  me  " 

(naming  a  well-known  broker  of  Wall  Street,  who  had  gone 
to  Europe  on  business),  "  narrating  the  like  exploit  of  a 
bold  thief.  I  found  myself  often  thinking  of  his  daring,, 
and  that  day  the  "fiend  got  hold  of  me.  It  was  but  the 

work  of  a  moment.  I  was  near  the Bank. 

I  stepped  in,  and  saw  many%  there  ;  stuck  my  hat  in  here  "" 
(within  his  vest,  a.  small  slouched  hat);  "and  before  I 
knew  it,  the  thing  was  done.  There's  my  confession.  Do 
with  me  what  you  please.  I  have  often  resolved  to  re- 
store the  money ;  but  I  have  as  often  failed,  for  fear  that 
somehow  I'd  get  found  out." 

"  Well,  we  are  satisfied,"  said  I ;  "  and  all  we  want  is 
what  I  have  asked." 

"  Of  course  it  shall  be  done  ;  but  for  God's  sake  you 
must  forgive  me,  and  forever  conceal  my  name,  for  I 
27  18* 


460  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

never  can  do  such  a  thing  again.  1  have  suffered  too 
much  from  it." 

"  The  matter  has  been  concealed  from  everybody  ex- 
cept the  clerks  in  the  bank,  who  are  pledged  to  secrecy ; 
not  even  your  own  clerk  knows  that  any  money  has  been 
lost,  and  nobody  but  Mr.  -  "  (the  president)  "  and  me 
has  any  suspicion  of  you.  Wo  wanted  to  get  the  money 
more  than  we  wanted  you." 

"  I  am  ready  to  settle  now,"  said  he. 

But  he  had  not  on  hand  all  the  money  we  wanted ;  but 
before  two  hours  were  over  proper  deeds,  in  due  legal 
form  and  execution,  conveyed  to  the  president,  in  personal 
mortgage,  at  least  five  times  as  much  as  was  needed  to 
make  up  the  deficit  in  cash.  This  proved  the  most  lucra- 
tive job  for  me  which  I  ever  "  worked  up,"  and  the  bank 
got  back  all  its  money,  with  interest  thereon. 

It  only  remains  for  me  to  say,  that  that  broker  became 
an  "  altered  man  "  in  some  respects.  I  did  not  like  his 
countenance,  and  I  did  not  believe  his  expressions  of 
penitence  full}'.  There  was  a  dark,  bad  "  streak"  in  his 
nature,  I  thought;  but  he  has  committed  no  more  rob- 
beries, I  suspect,  unless  they  were  done  in  his  capacity 
of  member  of  the  Common  Council,  to  which  body  he  was 
afterwards  elected,  having  left  Wall  Street,  and  entered 
upon  other  than  the  broker's  business,  and  turned  a  ward 
politician.  But  let  not  other  thieves,  therefore,  nourish 
hope  from  the  example  of  his  .good  (or  bad)  fortune. 


$1,250,000,  OR  THE  PRIVATE  MARK. 


MONEY-GETTING  AS  RELATED  TO  CRIME — A  VERY  STRANGE  HISTORY  — 
THE  MOST  WONDROUS  PURSUIT  OP  A  MAN  BY  HIS  ENEMY  WHICH  EVER 
(PROBABLY)  WAS  KNOWN  IN  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  WOELD  —  JAMES 
WILLIAM  HUBERT  ROGERS  AND  "  NED  "  HAGUE,  TWO  ENGLISHMEN  — 
"DAMON  AND  PYTHIAS"  IN  EARLY  LIFE  —  A  CHANGE  COMES  —  A  DE- 
PARTED AND  CONSIDERATE  UNCLE  DESCRIBED,  ONCE  A  PROTEGE  OF 

THE  EMPEROR  OF  AUSTRIA OLIVER  CROMWELL  HAGUE,  A  RICH  INDIA 

MERCHANT A  MARVELOUS  SEARCH  FOR  A  LOST  MAN A  MAN  FOUND 

AND  IDENTIFIED  BY  NUMEROUS  FRIENDS  AS  THE  ONE  IN  QUESTION 

PLOTTING  AND  COUNTER-PLOTTING A  SHREWD  VERMONT  "LAWYER" 

MAKES  A  THOUSAND  POUNDS  STERLING  —  THE  INDEFATIGABLE  ROGERS 
COMES  TO  AMERICA  IN  HIS  SEARCH  —  LOST  IN  THE  VA8TNE8S  OF  THE 
COUNTRY — WE  MEET,  AND  DEPART  FOR  ST.  LOUIS  —  TROUBLES,  AND 
AN  ENLIGHTENING  DREAM  A  WICKED  LAWYER THE  RIGHT  TO  RE- 
PENT—  A  SPIRITED  COLLOQUY  WITH  THE  LAWYER  —  AN  ENEMY  FOUND 
AND  SET  TO  WORK  —  THE  GRASPING  LAWYER  OUTWITTED —  THE  LOST 
FOUND  IN  A  TERRIBLE  CONDITION  —  A  LITTLE  PRIVATE  FUN  OVER  THE 
LAWYER'S  DISCOMFITURE  —  A  SHARP  EXAMINATION  AND  CROSS-EXAMI- 
NATION —  LAWYER  OUTWITTED,  AND  LOSES  FIVE  HUNDRED  DOLLARS  — 

MR.   ROGERS  DEPARTS  WITH  THE  "LOST    ONE,"    BOUND    FOR    ENGLAND 

THE  SUDDEN  DROWNING  OF  THE  LATTER  AT  SEA —  THE  CHERISHED 
VICTORY  OF  YEARS  VANISHES  —  OUT,  WITH  A  LAUGH. 

THE  "  battle  of  life  "  has  so  many  phases,  and  my  own 
experiences  have  run  in  so  many  channels,  and  my  knowl- 
edge of  human  curiosity  is  so  extensive,  and  my  desire  in 
these  papers  to  gratify  the  same  so  great,  that  I  am  at  a 
loss,  as  I  turn  over  my  diaries  and  notes  of  other  histories 
of  the  past  years  to-day,  what  to  select  from  my  notes  next ; 
for,  whatever  disposition  my  publishers  may  make  of  this 
in  the  arrangement  of  these  chapters,  this  is  really  one  of 
the  very  last  of  them  all  in  the  order  of  writing,*  and  one  of 
the  very  last  in  point  of  fact,  which  I  shall  ever  enlarge 
from  my  notes  into  current  narrative.  But  my  notes  are 

461 


462  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

so  full,  that  my  friends,  after  I  am  gone,  should  they  desire 
to  put  before  the  world  a  supplement  of  these  experiences, 
will  have  but  little  trouble  —  that,  simply,  of  telling  the 
tales  in  their  own  style.  But  it  strikes  me  that  the  reader 
must  feel,  as  he  reads,  something  of  the  interest  I  felt  as 
an  actor,  in  part,  in  the  scenes  which  it  narrates. 

Of  the  "  battle  of  life,"  then,  no  phase  can  well  be  of  so 
much  interest  to  the  great  majority  as  that  of  money-get- 
ting. This  absorbs  everything,  and  is,  in  fact,  the  great 
source  of  nine  tenths,  at  least,  of  all  human  crimes.  But 
'•  money-getting,"  as  well  as  wealth  itself,  has  its  "  different 
sides,"  —  its  positive  and  comparative,  I  might  almost 
say,  negative  characteristics.  Wealth,  in  one  locality, 
would  be  comparative  poverty  in  another;  that  is,  the 
amount  of  money  which  constitutes  a  man  "  wealthy  "  in  a 
far  off  country  town,  would  be  sneered  at  as  a  very  trifle  in 
this  great  metropolis,  New  York  ;  would  hardly  be  enough 
to  support  the  possessor  for  a  year  among  the  moderate 
livers  of  the  city,  with  their  luxury  and  indulgences, 
which  cost  so.  much  more  than  those  of  the  country. 

I  said  that  money-getting  is  comparative  also.  It  is,  in 
this  sense.  The  envious  wrestler  for  the  smiles  of  the 
"  Money  God  "  has  not  only  his  positive  work  to  do,  but 
often  feels  it  as  much  his  duty  to  defeat  others  as  to  win 
himself;  as  the  driver  of  the  winning  horse  at  the  races 
often  succeeds  only  by  defeating  his  competitor's  horse  — 
"  breaking  him  up,"  for  example,  by  some  more  or  less 
honorable  mode  —  any  mode  which  the  rules  of  the  race 
do  not  absolutely  forbid.  So  in  this  case  I  am  about  to 
recite  —  the  most  wonderful  hunt,  perhaps,  and  the  most 
exciting  and  long-continued,  and  replete  with  ludicrous, 
solemn,  dangerous,  as  well  as  joyful  incidents,  which  ever 
characterized  any  cause,  and  was  carried  on  literally  around 
the  globe,  inspired  and  sustained  by  the  desire  of  a 
man,  a  rich  man,  not  to  profit  by  it  himself,  but  to  defeat 
his  enemy  and  keep  him  poor,  that  he  might  not  become  a 
competitor  with  him,  as  a  man  of  wealth,  for  the  smiles,  adu- 


JUVENILE  BOSOM  FRIENDS.  463 

lations,  and  sycophancies  of  the  peasant,  and  small  farming 
and  mercantile  population  of  a  little  town  in  England. 

The  name  of  this  strange  man  was  James  William  Hu- 
bert Rogers,  which  he  always  wrote  out  in  full,  with  true 
English  pride,  even  when  subscribing  the  shortest  letter, 
as  well  as  a  five  thousand  pound  promissory  note.  He  re- 
minded me  in  this  of  sundry  gentlemen  I  have  met,  of  our 
sister  city,  Boston,  who,  proud  of  the  "  Athens  of  America," 
take  greatest  pains  in  entering  their  full  names  —  though 
frequently  the  initial  of  the  first,  and  the  middle  name,  if 
any,  in  full,  in  the  dandaical  style  —  in  hotel  registers. 
"J.  Adams  Bromfield,"  "  H.  Gray  Otis  Ticknor,"  with 
BOSTON  "  displayed  "  (as  the  printers  would  say)  over  as 
much  space  as  possible,  as  if  it  would  surely  reflect  credit 
on  the  person  himself. 

James  William  Hubert  Rogers  was  a  peculiar  man.  I 
have  thought  that  his  history,  even  the  comparatively 
little  I  know  of  it,  would  be  one  of  the  most  interesting 
biographies  ever  published ;  but  I  do  not  intend  to  give 
more  of  it  here  than  will  be  necessary  to  make  this  narra- 
tive connected  and  clear.  Mr.  Rogers  had  been  brought 
up  in  moderate  circumstances,  educated  to  mercantile  life 
in  a  small  way,  in  a  country  place  in  Yorkshire.  Prior  to 
being  apprenticed,  at  seventeen  years  of  age,  to  a  mer- 
chant, he  had  constantly  attended  school  from  about  the 
age  of  six  years ;  and  whether  at  the  "  infant  school,"  or 
the  private  classical  school  of  some  pretensions,  had  been 
as  constantly  attended  by  a  bosom  friend,  just  "  one  day 
and  one  hour  older  "  than  he,  as  their  respective  mothers 
were  wont  to  tell  them.  This  person's  name  was  "  Ned  " 
Hague ;  (whether  he,  too,  had  a  list  of  other  cumbrous 
names  I  never  asked,  but  I  presume  he  had,  and  I  wonder 
such  a  burden  does  not  spoil  the  disposition  of  children  — 
perhaps  it  does.)  James  and  Ned  played  together,  romped, 
studied,  and.  all  that  together ;  as  children,  were  insepar- 
able, in  short.  The  one,  "  Ned,"  was  described  to  me  as  a 
very  handsome  fellow,  and  very  athletic.  James  was 


464  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

equally  athletic,  but  was  less  handsome  in  face ;  in  flu  t. 
though  his  features  were  all  well  enough  formed,  and  there 
was  a  hardy  look  about  his  face,  yet  there  was  a  something 
in  his  expression  of  countenance  which  was  at  times  very 
repulsive  to  me  ;  a  dogged,  unfeeling  look,  not  simply  spite- 
ful, but  somehow  of  unwearying,  cool-blooded  vengeance  ; 
yet  lie  was  always  kind  and  generous  to  me  throughout  our 
acquaintance.  "  Ned  "  came  into  the  world  under  a  little 
better  auspices  than  James,  that  is,  his  parents  were  a  little 
"better  oft',"  and  lived  in  a  house  which  they  owned,  a  little 
more  stylish  than  that  which  James's  parents  occupied,  but 
rented.  However,  James's  father  was  a  better  business 
man  than  Ned's  father,  and  earned  a  larger  salary.  So 
things  were  balanced ;  but  James  confessed  to  me  that  he 
used,  on  account  of  the  better  house,  to  be  a  particle  en- 
vious of  Ned's  condition  in  their  childhood,  but  this  was 
all  tfle  ill-feeling  he  ever  had  towards  him  in  those  days. 
But  James  went  to  mercantile  life  at  seventeen;  and  a 
year  after,  "  Ned."  having  quite  an  aptitude  for  writing, 
connected  himself  with  a  small  provincial  newspaper.  The 
young  men  continued  their  intimacy,  which  was  carried 
into  their  love  affairs  as  well  as  into  everything  else,  until 
they  arrived  at  the  age  of  twenty-three,  when  there  came 
an  "  interruption  "  of  their  mutual  affection,  which  finally 
degenerated  into  mutual  dislike,  and  upon  the  part  of 
James,  whom  we  will  now  call  Mr.  Rogers,  into  unforgiving, 
implacable  hate.  What  was  the  precise  cause  of  this  I  was 
never  informed  in  detail,  but  I  learned  the  general  facts 
from  a  friend  of  Mr.  Rogers's,  whom  I  met  in  England  somo 
two  years  after  I  first  made  his  acquaintance.  From  all  I 
could  gather, -there  was  really  no  sensible  reason  for  the 
great  enmity  which  came  to  exist  between  these  men. 
But  this  is  not  a  part  of  the  story,  properly,  and  I  must 
pass  it  over. 

Years- went  on,  and  Mr.  Rogers  and  Mr.  Hague  continued 
to  live  near  each  other.  The  latter  abandoned  his  steady 
connection  with  the  newspapers,  though  he  continued  to 


ANOTHER  RICHARD   III.  465 

write  for  the  press  more  or  less,  and  went  into  business 
with  an  old  apothecary,  arid  finally  succeeded  to  his  whole 
business  at  his  death.  He  was  more  fortunate,  for  years, 
than  was  Mr.  Rogers,  who,  however,  managed  to  live  com- 
fortably, and  to  add  considerably  to  his  possessions.  Dur- 
ing these  years,  and  after  their  quarrel  commenced,  the 
dislike  of  these  men  grew  into  a  sort  of  silent  hatred. 
They  had  but  little  to  say  of  each  other,  but  what  they  did 
say  was  crispy  with  bitterness.  Those  who  remembered 
their  early-life's  affection,  were  astonished  that  anything 
could  have  wrought  such  an  enmity ;  for  both  of  these  men 
were  considered  honorable  and  upright  in  their  dealings 
with  their  fellow-men,  and  were  genial  citizens,  of  demo- 
cratic tastes  and  associations. 

But  finally  Mr.  Rogers  became  suddenly  very  rich, through 
a  legacy  left  him  by  a  quaint  old  uncle,  the  brother  of  his 
mother,  who,  in  Mr.  Rogers's  boyhood,  had  taken  a  fancy 
to  him.  The  uncle  was  a  deformed  man,  —  a  little  in  the 
order  of  Richard  Third,  —  and  this  might  be  said  of  him, 
mentally  as  well  as  physically.  He  was  competent  to  have 
filled  the  British  throne  with  more  credit  than  many  a  mon- 
arch who  has  sitten  upon  it.  But  Henry  De  Noyelles  (for 
that  was  the  uncle's  name  —  sprung  from  an  old  Norman 
stock)  had  curious  deformities  efface,  which  excited  great 
ridicule  among  the  heartless.  His  eyes  could  not  be  said 
to  be  "  crossed "  exactly,  but  something  worse,  and  his 
nose  was  oddly  shaped,  besides  being  very  flexible,  and  it 
flapped  about  as  if  there  was  "  no  bone  in  it,"  as  the  peo- 
ple used  to  say  of  it. 

Mr.  De  Noyelles  was  naturally  a  proud-spirited  man, 
who  felt  that,  intellectually,  he  was  no  man's  inferior  by 
nature,  and  his  deformities  stung  him  to  the  quick.  He 
was  a  great  mechanic  naturally,  very  ingenious  and  exec- 
utive ;  had  a  rare  force  for  acquiring  languages  and  the 
sciences ;  and,  driven  from  society  by  his  deformity  and 
his  wounded  pride,  he  occupied  his  hours  out  of  business 
with  constant  reading,  and  his  acquirements  in  literature 


466^  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

became  large.  He  devoted  himself  considerably  in  his 
youth  to  mathematical  studies,  and  had  a  great  proclivity 
to  civil  engineering.  He  inherited  a  moderate  fortune 
from  his  father,  and  after  becoming  of  age,  and  feeling 
that  he  was  ridiculed  among  his  fellow-townsmen,  became 
morose,  and  learned  to  hate  all  English  people,  and  finally 
betook  himself  to  the  Continent,  and  soon,  in  some  way, 
attracted  the  attention  of  the  Emperor  of  Austria,  who 
gave  him  place  at  last  as  a  Superintendent  of  Engineers, 
iii  which  capacity  his  inventive  genius  served  him,  and 
in  the  course  of  a  few  years  he  became  one  of  the  most 
able  operators  in  Europe,  and,  enjoying  an  interest  in 
many  valuable  contracts,  acquired,  at  last,  a  vast  fortune. 
Ill-looking  that  he  was,  there  were  elegant  women  enough 
ready  to  marry  him  for  his  position  and  money.  But  he 
remained  a  bachelor,  partly  through  fear  of  women,  whom 
he  looked  upon  as  lacking  in  conscience,  and  none  of 
whom,  he  felt,  could  really  love  such  a  looking  creature 
as  he.  But  he  had  another  reason,  which  would  have  de- 
cided him,  if  nothing  else  had  done  so.  It  was  this  — and 
when  I  was  told  of  it,  I  confess  that  I  felt  more  respect 
for  the  good  in  humanity  than  I  had  ever  done  before. 
He  said  he  was  unfit  for  marriage,  since  he  was  unfit  to 
be  a  father ;  that  it  were  very  possible  that  a  child  of  his 
would  inherit  his  deformities,  especially  that  of  the  nose, 
and  that  the  wealth  of  all  Europe  would  not  induce  him  to 
be  instrumental  in  inflicting  life  upon  a  being  who  might 
suffer  as  he  had  done.  Indeed,  he  held  peculiar  notions 
upon  this  subject  in  general ;  and  taking  Malthus's  no- 
tions in  regard  to  a  possible  over-peopling  of  the  globe, 
and  the  direful  consequences  thereof,  as  a  basis  to  write 
upon,  he  dilated  his  views  into  a  small  book,  which,  how- 
ever, both  the  Catholic  and  Protestant  doctors  of  Austria 
so  seriously  condemned  as  heretical,  that  he  came  near 
losing  his  official  position  under  the  government. 

But  I  digress  again.     Mr.  De  Noyelles,  or  as  ho  was 
called  in  Austria,  for  his  great  learning,  Dr.  De  Noyelles, 


FOSTERING  HATE.  467 

fell  in  love  with  young  Rogers,  because  the  boy  exhibited 
an  affection  for  him,  and  never  seemed  to  be  conscious 
of  his  uncle's  deformities,  but  treated  him  as  affec- 
tionately and  obediently  as  he  did  his  own  handsome 
mother,  and  noble-looking,  symmetrical  father,  or  anybody 
else.  Mr.  Rogers  had  paid  his  uncle,  at  the  latter's  invi- 
tation and  expense,  a  short  annual  visit,  for  some  years, 
and  when  Dr.  De  Noyelles  came  to  die,  it  was  found 
that  he  had  privately  visited  England,  where  the  great 
bulk  of  his  funds  was  invested,  the  year  before,  and  had 
made  his  will  largely  in  favor  of  Mr.  Rogers,  after  con- 
tributing to  sundry  charities  in  a  large  and  generous  way, 
and  providing  moderately  for  his  sister's  (Mr.  Rogers's 
mother)  other  children. 

So  Mr.  Rogers  got  to  be  extremely  wealthy ;  and  though 
it  was  said  of  him,  by  his  old  neighbors  in  general,  that  his 
great  fortune  did  not  seem  to  make  him  vain  as  a  man,  or 
render  him  less  approachable  than  before,  it  was  evident 
that  he  prized  his  good  luck  most  of  all  for  the  contrast 
which  it  established  between  him  —  now  the  man  of  abun- 
dant leisure  and  great  wealth  —  and  Mr.  Hague,  still  the 
plodding,  though  well-to-do,  apothecary.  In  various  ways 
he  made,  or  tried  to  make,  Mr.  Hague  feel  this,  but  it 
would  seem  that  the  latter  gentleman  was  very  imperturb- 
able, and  took  things  quite  coolly. 

Mr.  Rogers  set  up  another  apothecary  in  business,  at  a 
point  near  Mr.  Hague's  shop,  and  provided  him  Avith  a 
large  shop,  with  brilliant  appointments  and  a  large  stock, 
and  he  caused  him  to  sell  cheaper  than  Mr.  Hague  could 
afford  to.  Indeed,  it  was  said  that  Mr.  Rogers  lost  some 
two  thousand  pounds  the  first  year,  in  thus  going  into 
competition  with  Mr.  Hague  ;  but  he  persevered.  In 
England  it  is  not  an  easy  thing  to  draw  away  customers 
fuom  an  old  house  where  the  people  can  rely  upon  honest 
dealings  ;  but  Mr.  Rogers  was  bent  on  doing  Mr.  Hague 
all  the  harm  he  could.  Of  course  he  did  not  let  the  pub- 
lic know  that  he  was  at  the  bottom  of  the  matter. 


468  KNOTS    UNTIED. 

The  apothecary,  whom  he  provided  with  means,  came 
from  Liverpool,  and  Mr.  Rogers  was  at  first  supposed  to 
have  given  him  only  his  custom  and  countenance  in  trade. 
But  Mr.  Hague  suspected  him  from  tho  first ;  and  as  things 
developed,  and  he  became  sure  of  Mr.  Rogers's  financial 
support  of  his  rival,  Mr.  Hague  whispered  Che  matter  to 
his  own  friends,  who  came,  to  some  extent,  to  his  aid.  So 
the  competition  became  spirited  at  last,  and  Mr.  Hague 
found  it  difficult  to  contend  with  his  competitor. 

Little  by  little  his  business  frittered  away,  and  ho  was 
barely  able  to  meet  his  current  expenses.  Mr.  Rogers 
evidently  gloated  over  the  downfall  of  his  once  bosom 
friend,  now  hated  enemy  ;  but  he  said  never  a  word 
against  him,  seldom  spoke  of  him  at  all.  Meanwhile  Mr. 
Rogers  surrounded  himself  with  all  luxuries;  bought  a 
splendid  old  mansion  and  its  magnificent  grounds,  which 
he  greatly  improved,  and  though  not  a  gaudy  man,  was 
vain  enough  to  consult  a  herald  office,  and  look  up  a  coat 
of  arms  for  his  coach  panels  and  the  trappings  of  his 
horses'  harnesses.  He  took  a  great  delight  in  riding  after 
his  splendid  horses  along  by  the  comfortable,  but  compar- 
atively humble,  house  of  Mr.  Hague,  and  in  arraying  his 
wife  and  children  in  an  attire  too  costly,  not  only  for  .Mr. 
Hague,  but  any  of  his  neighbors  to  attempt  to  imitate. 
Mr.  Rogers  enjoyed  this  kind  of  mean  spite  and  low  pride 
for  considerable  time,  but  there  came  a  turn  in  affairs. 

Thirty  years  before  these  days  of -which  I  was  last 
speaking,  Oliver  Hague,  or  rather  Oliver  Cromwell  Hague, 
—  for  he  was  named  after  the  great  Pretender,  by  his 
mother,  the  stand  lest  of  all  Protestants,  and  who  was  very 
proud  of  her  ancestors'  service  under  the  great  Oliver,  — 
a  then  quite  thriving  London  merchant,  went  out  to 
India  to  extend  his  business  there,  with  the  purpose  of 
returning  in  a  year  or  so;  but  he  remained  there.  II is 
brother  Edward,  after  whom  our  Mr.  Hague  was  named, 
conducted  the  London  end  of  the  business,  and  the  houso 
grew  rich  very  fast. 


A   WILL  AND   ITS   CONDITIONS.  469 

Mr.  Edward  was  older  than  Oliver,  and  was  at  the  time 
of  Oliver's  departure  a  married  man,  and  the  father  of 
some  five  or  six  children.  Meanwhile  all  these  children 
but  two  died,  and  one  of  the  others  had  proved  a  wild, 
graceless  fellow,  and  at  the  early  age  of  sixteen,  after  sun- 
dry dissipations,  had  fled  to  America.  But  Irttle  had  been 
heard  from  him  by  his  family  for  years,  and  when  Mr. 
Oliver  made  his  will,  he  had  provided  for  this  boy,  —  now 
man,  if  he  could  be  found,  —  otherwise,  what  would  come 
to  him  (his  name  was  Frederic),  was  to  go  to  Edward, — 
the  "  Ned  "  of  our  story,  —  mostly  to  himself,  and  one  part 
in  trust  for  his  younger  brother  and  his  sisters,  for  he  was 
the  eldest  child  of  the  family.  Mr.  Oliver  Hague  set  aside 
a  certain  sum,  which  was  to  be  used  in  the  search  for 
Frederic,  if  necessary.  All  reasonable  means  of  finding 
him  were  to  be  exhausted,  and  then,  upon  satisfactory  re- 
port to  the  court,  —  for  the  search  was  directed  to  be  made 
by  persons  "  of  good  and  faithful  disposition,"  as  the  will 
read,  —  that  its  directions  had  been  followed  unavailingly, 
then  the  property  was  to  be  decreed  to  be  Edward's,, 
whether  Frederic  were  really  living  or  not,  Edward  to 
provide  him  an  expressed  and  generous  annuity  in  case 
he  should  thereafter  come  to  light.  The  will  provided, 
too,  that  Frederic,  if  found,  should  give  Edward  a  like  an- 
nuity. 

Great  search  was  made  for  Frederic.  I  should  say 
here  that  the  senior  Edward  and  his  son  William  had  gone 
out  to  India  to  visit  Oliver,  and  had  died  there  before 
Oliver's  death,  and  that  all  the  business  of  the  house 
of  Oliver  C.  Hague  &  Brother  had  been  really  that  of 
Oliver  alone,  his  brother  having  been  contented  with  a 
simple  commission,  in  their  private  contract,  expecting  to 
succeed,  at  some  time,  to  the  whole  business  when  Oliver 
should  die;  as  he  expected,  years  before  him,  as  he  was 
many  years  older  than  he.  Numerous  advertisements 
were  inserted  in  the  papers  of  the  United  States  and 
Canada,  and  every  possible  means  taken  to  find  Frederic, 


470  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

even  to  sending  a  man  to  Australia,  where,  by  one  account, 
it  was  said  that  Frederic  had  gone  years  before. 

A  messenger  was  sent  to  the  United  States,  too,  with 
instruction  to  visit  the  various  cities,  and  to  advertise  as 
largely  as  possible,  engage  detective  policemen  when 
practical,  etc.  And  the  messenger  did  his  work  thorough- 
ly as  he  went  on.  Months  rolled  away,  and  the  weekly 
communications  of  the  messenger  added  no  light  to  the 
whereabouts,  or  the  existence  even,  of  Frederic  Hague  — 
they  only  gave  assurance  of  where  he  was  not. 

Meanwhile  Mr.  Edward  Hague  kept  on  in  the  even 
tenor  of  his  way,  doubtless  hoping  that  Frederic  would 
not  be  found,  or,  perhaps,  wishing  that  he  had  "  gone  to 
heaven  long  before."  But  every  day  Mr.  Edward's  neigh- 
bors grew  more  and  more  gratulatory  of  him  on  the  prob- 
able fortune  coming  to  him,  and  his  good  luck  of  the 
annuity  at  least,  but  of  which  he  would  obtain  nothing  till 
it  was  sure  that  Frederic  was  found,  or  could  not  be  dis- 
covered. Mr.  Edward,  I  was  told,  showed  excellent  sense 
during  those  days,  and  did  not  allow  himself  to  be  moved 
to  vanity  in  his  hopes.  As  time  went  on  he  became,  of 
course,  more  certain  in  his  opinion  that  Frederic  would  not 
be  found. 

But  there  was  one  man  who  took  a  fierce  interest  in 
this  business.  He  became  nervous  over  it.  His  enmity 
towards  many  increased ;  in  fact,  he  began  to  hate  the 
whole  world,  that  it  did  not  deliver  up  Frederic  Hague  to 
life  and  light ;  and  that  man  was  James  Williams  Hubert 
Rogers.  He  could  not  bear  the  thought  that  his  old  en- 
emy, "  Ned  "  Hague,  should  come  into  the  possession  of  a 
fortune  reputed,  at  that  time,  to  be  vastly  larger  than  his 
own,  and  which  proved,  on  the  settlement  of  the  estate, 
more  than  twice  as  large  as  his,  being,  in  minimum,  two 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  pounds.  There  w'ere  certain 
contingent  interests  which  swelled  it  a  good  deal.  A 
million  and  a  quarter  of  dollars  constituted  no  mean  estate, 
and  Mr.  Rogers  could  not  bear  to  be  thrown  into  the  shade 


A  YANKEE  LAWYER'S   ARTS.  471 

by  it,  in  the  hands  of  one  he  hated,  too.  So  he  interested 
himself  in  the  matter,  opening  private  correspondence 
with  sundry  persons  he  knew  in  the  United  States,  and 
well  he  got  come  up  with  for  his  pains. 

There  was  residing,  somewhere  in  Vermont,  a  lawyer, 
who  had  interested  himself  on  behalf  of  persons  residing 
in  America,  and  entitled  to  property  in  chancery,  etc.,  in 
England.  To  his  knowledge  came  the  fact  of  this  search 
for  Frederic  Hague,  and  Mr.  Rogers's  interest  in  it,  and  he 
managed,  through  some  London  friend  of  his,  to  have  him- 
self named  to  Mr.  Rogers  as  just  the  man  to  hunt  up  Fred- 
eric. "  If  anybody  can  find  him  he  can,"  so  said  the  Lon- 
don friend.  Mr.  Rogers  opened  correspondence  with  the 
Vermont  lawyer,  and  the  result  was  that,  in  the  course  of 
a  few  months,  the  lawyer  succeeded  in  finding  Mr.  Fred- 
eric Hague, —  "a  sickly  man,"  as  he  described  him, — 
who,  having  been  through  all  sorts  of  vicissitudes  in  life, 
had  settled  down  in  an  obscure  town  in  upper  New  York 
State.  This  man,  the  lawyer  found,  answered  to  all  the 
descriptions  of  Mr.  Hague  which  had  been  elicited  from 
the  correspondence  of  Mr.  Rogers. 

It  was  agreed  that  the  greatest  efforts  should  be  made 
to  restore  this  man  to  health,  and  send  him  over  to  Eng- 
land to  claim  his  property.  Mr.  Rogers  was  more  than 
delighted.  He  sent  to  the  lawyer  to  have  a  detailed  state- 
ment made  by  Mr.  Frederic  Hague,  and  sworn  to,  as  to 
what  he  remembered  of  his  life  in  England,  and  what  ex- 
periences he  had  undergone  since,  down  to  the  hour ;  all 
of  which  was  duly  made  out,  and  forwarded  to  Mr.  Rogers, 
who  was  perfectly  satisfied  with  the  same,  and  indulged 
himself  with  secretly  gloating  over  the  terrible  defeat 
which  was  to  come  to  Mr.  Edward  Hague,  who,  by  this 
time,  was  confident  that  Frederic  would  never  be  found ; 
and  he  enjoined  secrecy  on  the  Vermont  lawyer ;  he  wanted 
all  the  glory  himself;  and  he  wished  to  have  Frederic  there 
in  England,  and  present  him  to  the  commissioners  who  had 


472  KXOTS  UNTIED. 

the  matter  ill  hand,  before  it  was  known  that  he  had  been 
found. 

In  his  statement,  Frederic  had  disclosed  that  ho  had 
married  rather  late  in  life,  and  had  a  small  family  depend- 
ent upon  him;  and  as  he  got  better,  and  was  about  ready 
to  depart  for  England,  the  lawyer  wrote  to  Mr.  Rogers, 
representing  the  dependent  circumstances  of  Mr.  Hague's 
family,  and  asking  a  loan  for  him  of  two  thousand  pounds, 
and  asking  also  for  a  hundred  pounds  for  his  own  services. 
Mr.  Rogers  thought  this  moderate  enough,  and  forwarded 
to  the  lawyer,  through  the  British  consulate  in  New  York, 
a  check  for  two  thousand  one  hundred  pounds,  with  the 
form  of  a  note  for  Frederic  to  sign  to  cover  the  two  thou- 
sand pounds ;  and  the  lawyer  and  Mr.  Hague  appeared 
duly  at  the  consulate,  and  received  the  money. 

It  afterwards  appeared  that  this  Mr.  Frederic  received 
only  one  thousand  dollars  of  the  sum,  besides  his  expenses 
to  and  from  England.  The  lawyer  made  sure  of  the  rest. 
The  man  went  over,  and  played  his  part  as  Frederic 
Hague  for  a  time,  quite  successfully,  and  it  is  possible 
that  he  might  have  succeeded,  for  he  found  several  old 
people  who  identified  him  as  the  Frederic,  and  were  ready 
to  swear  to  their  memory  of  him.  But  an  old  American 
friend  and  former  schoolmate  of  the  man  chanced  to  come 
across  him  when  in  company  with  some  persons  interested 
in  the  estate  he  was  after,  —  one  of  whom  chanced  to  be 
Edward  Hague,  who  was  himself  deceived,  —  and  the 
American  gentleman  rushed  up  to  him,  overjoyed  to  meet 
him  on  foreign  soil,  exclaiming,  "  Why,  Dick  Clapp,  how 
do  you  do?  What  on  earth  can  have  brought  you  over 
here?" 

Clapp  was  for  an  instant  taken  aback,  but  rallied,  denied 
his  name,  and  declared  that  the  American  gentleman  was 
mistaken,  etc. ;  and  this  he  did,  unhappily  for  him,  in  such 
an  ungracious  way,  as  made  his  old  friend  angry. 

"  Dick  Clapp  1 "  said  he,  "  I  hope  you  are  not  over 
here  on  business  you  are  ashamed  of.  I  swear  you  are 


HOW  IT   WAS   DONE.  473 

Dick  Clapp,  and  I  went  to  school  with  you  and  your 
brother  James,  and  your  sisters  Mary,  Adeline,  and  Isa- 
bella, in  the  good  old  town  of  Putney.  Now,  if  you  are 
here  up  to  anything  you  ought  to  be  ashamed  of,  you 
should  have  given  me  the  wink  when  you  denied  your- 
self, and  not  acted  so  like  a  d — d  hog." 

There  was  no  mistaking  the  American's  conviction  that 
he  knew  Mr.  Clapp.  and  Mr.  Edward  Hague  called  the 
man  aside,  and  told  him  what  this  Mr.  Frederic  Hague  had 
come  over  for.  The  American  was  indignant,  and  offered 
to  prove  Clapp's  identity  at  his  own  expense ;  said  he 
would  send  over  to  America  for  witnesses  to  come  out, 
and  identify  him,  and  then  went  and  told  Clapp  he  had 
better  get  out  of  the  country  as  soon  as  he  coald,  or  he 
would  expose  him  through  the  press  of  the  United  States. 
Clapp  defied  him ;  but  it  was  too  evident  to  all  present 
that  he  was  an  impostor,  and  it  is  supposed  that  when  Mr. 
Rogers  came  to  hear  of  the  fact,  he  felt  as  if  the  Yankee 
lawyer  had  been  too  shrewd  for  him. 

It  afterwards  appeared  that  Rogers  had  not  been  carry- 
ing on  the  correspondence  with  the  lawyer  he  supposed  to 
be  his  correspondent.  Some  other  lawyer  had  assumed 
the  real  lawyer's  name,  and  given  it  an  initial  letter  of  a 
middle  name.  The  London  friend  had  not  discovered  or 
thought  of  this,  and  was  himself  imposed  upon  (he  who 
cgmmended  the  Yankee  lawyer  to  Mr.  Rogers).  So  when 
Mr.  Rogers  afterwards  instituted  proceedings  against  a 
certain  Vermont  lawyer  to  recover  the  amount  of  the 
swindle,  he  found  he  had  been  dealing  with  some  other 
man  —  an  "  unknown  "  and  unknowable. 

Clapp  got  out  of  England  at  his  early  convenience,  and 
the  search  of  Frederic  was  about  being  given  up;  but 
during  the  excitement  in  regard  to  Clapp,  an  account  of 
what  was  going  on  reached  an  old  playmate  of  Frederic's, 
living  some  twenty  miles  away  from  where  Mr.  Edward 
Hague  lived,  and  this  man  remembered  that  one  time, 
when  he  and  Edward,  as  boys  of  about  eight  years  of  age, 


474  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

were  playing  in  the  loft  of  an  old  carriage-house,  Edward, 
jumping  from  a  beam,  had  got  his  foot  entangled  in  some- 
thing, and  fell  slantingly  upon  the  teeth  of  a  kind  of  hatchel, 
—  and  terribly  lacerated  the  flesh  on  the  back  portion  of 
his  left  shoulder,  tearing  the  flesh,  in  fact,  nearly  off  from 
the  scapular  bone.  This  wound,  he  said,  left  great  scars. 
He  had,  in  after  years,  frequently  been  bathing  with  Fred- 
eric, and  knew  that  he  must  bear  these  scars  for  life. .  He 
therefore  wrote  to  Mr.  Edward  Hague  that  Frederic  could 
be  identified  by  that  "  private  mark,"  and  Mr.  Edward 
gave  publicity  to  the  fact,  and  quite  a  .number  of  people 
then  called  the  facts  to  mind. 

It  so  happened  that  in  the  correspondence  Mr.  Rogers 
had  heard  of  a  man  in  Missouri  who  said  he  was  the  Fred- 
eric Hague,  and  gave  a  pretty  good  account  of  matters 
before  he  left  England,  and  had  told  Mr.  Rogers's  corre- 
spondent, a  lawyer,  of  this  very  incident  of  the  injury  in 
the  carriage-house,  and  stated  that  he  had  borne  the  scars  of 
it  all  his  life  since.  This  had  been  communicated  to  Rogers, 
but  the  lawyer  had  added,  in  his  letter,  that,  on  the  whole, 
he  did  not  believe  the  man's  story ;  that  he  had,  as  near 
as  he  could  learn,  been  a  gambler ;  had  lived  much,  too, 
among  the  Indians ;  was  a  drunkard,  and  much  broken 
down,  and  quite  incoherent  in  his  memory.  Still  he  some- 
times thought  that  he  was,  after  all,  the  Frederic  Hague 
BO  much  wanted,  but  he  could  not  conscientiously  advise 
Mr.  Rogers  to  spend  any  money  on  him. 

When  the  fact  of  Frederic's  "  private  mark  "  was  called 
to  mind,  Rogers  again  took  heart,  and  searched  his  papers 
for  the  lawyer's  letters,  but  they  could  not  be  found.  He 
fancied  to  himself  that  perhaps  some  secret  emissary  of 
Edward  Hague  had  been  rifling  his  papers,  and  he  got  into 
torrents  of  anger  over  it,  till  at  last  he  swore  he  would 
trust  no  man,  and  would  go  out  to  America  himself  to  find 
Frederic  Hague,  "  and  restore  him  to  his  lawful  rights." 
His  friends  remonstrated,  pointed  him  to  the  perils  of  the 
sea,  the  sickly  character  of  a  great  portion  of  our  Western 


AT  ST.  LOUIS.  475 

States,  etc. ;  but  the  hardy  old  man,  for  he  was  getting  be- 
yond middle  age  now,  would  hear  to  none  of  them.  He 
made  his  will,  left  his  affairs  in  good  hands,  and  out  to 
America  he  came,  and  it  was  three  days  after  his  arrival 
that  I  made  his  acquaintance.  He  could  remember  neither 
the  Missouri  lawyer's  name  nor  that  of  his  post  office,  and 
it  was  suggested  to  Mr.  Rogers  by  an  English  friend,  whom 
he  found  residing  in  New  York,  and  who  had  been  here 
long  enough  to  learn  that  there  is  a  difference  between 
the  vast  extent  of  the  United  States  and  the  confined  area 
of  England,  that  he  had  better  employ  a  man  to  "  pilot " 
him  about  the  country,  especially  in  the  great  West ;  and 
it  chanced  that,  through  an  acquaintance  of  mine,  to  whom 
Mr.  Rogers's  want  was  made  known,  I  was  hit  upon  as  the 
proper  individual  to  consult,  and  Mr.  Rogers  and  his  friend 
called  on  me,  and  made  known  his  business,  giving  me  a 
good  part  of  this  story  as  I  have  detailed  it.  Other  parts 
J,  of  course,  obtained  from  others,  for  he  did  not,  at  first, 
let  me  into  the  secret  of  his  present  hatred  of,  and  his 
former  love  for,  Edward  Hague.  He  was  here  as  a  sort 
of  messenger  of  justice,  as  he  would  have  me  believe, — 
and  as  I  did  for  a  long  time  believe,  —  making  pure  self- 
sacrifices  in  the  cause  of  right,  to  restore  a  man  to  his 
rightful  possessions,  and  "  see  justice  triumph." 

We  soon  got  ready,  and  started  off  for  St.  Louis,  I  hav- 
ing concluded  that  the  best  thing  to  be  done  was  to  hunt 
up  that  lawyer,  —  Mr.  Rogers's  correspondent,  —  and  to  go 
on  to  the  ground,  and  find  out  the  names  of  as  many  lawyers 
as  I  could,  trusting  to  Mr.  Rogers's  memory  to  recollect 
the  name  if  he  should  hear  it ;  and  we  were  in  due  time 
the  guests  of  the  Planter's  Hotel,  and  went  at  once  to 
prosecuting  our  inquiries.  I  proceeded  to  find  the  assist- 
ant clerk  of  the  Supreme  Court,  —  an  old  man,  who  had, 
since  the  territorial  days  of  Missouri,  done  service  as 
a  court  clerk,  and  knew  almost  everybody  of  any  note  in 
the  State. 

He  gave  us  the  names  of  all  the  lawyers  in  St.  Louis,  and 
28  19 


476  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

in  the  adjoining  counties,  —  Jefferson,  St.  Charles,  Pike, 
Crawford,  Franklin,  Warren,  etc.,  lists  of  which  he  chanced 
to  have  ;  and  then  named  to  us  all  the  lawyers  in  other 
parts  of  the  State  whom  he  had  chanced  to  know ;  but  Mr. 
Rogers  recognized  none  of  them  as  his  correspondent,  and 
after  a  day  spent  in  this  sort  of  search,  we  returned  to  our 
hotel,  and  eventually  sought  our  beds. 

Finally,  I  was  aroused  out  of  a  two  hours'  slumber  by  a 
servant,  who  told  me  that  Mr.  Rogers  wanted  me  to  get 
up,  and  come  at  once  to  his  room. 

"  Has  he  a  fit?  "  I  asked,  fearful  that  the  old  fellow  had 
got  desponding  over  our  ill  success,  and  worked  himself 
into  a  fever,  or  something  else. 

"  No  ;  I  reckon  he  hain't,  massa,"  responded  the  darkey, 
opening  the  largest  mouth  I  ever  saw,  and  displaying  a 
set  of  teeth  formidable  enough  to  frighten  a  man  just 
awakened  from  sleep,  "  for  he's  up,  poundin'  'roun' ;  but  I 
do  say,  massa,  his  face  is  juf  as  red  as  if  he'd  had  a  fit,  or 
two  uv  'em  to  th'  same  time,  massa,  —  ugh !  ugh  1 " 

I  pulled  on  my  pants  and  coat,  and  proceeded  to  Mr. 
Rogers's  room. 

"  My  good  fellow,"  said  he,  "  I  couldn't  let  you  sleep 
any  longer.  That  infernal  name  has  come  to  my  mind. 
My  correspondent  lived  in  Warren  County  somewhere,  — 
Pinckney,  I  think  is  the  name  of  his  place,  and  I  am  sure 
the  old  clerk  read  his  name  to  us  to-day,  but  I  could  not 
recall  it  then." 

I  asked  him  why  "  in  the  name  of  St.  George,"  he  didn't 
take  his  pencil  and  make  a  note  of  this,  and  let  me  sleep 
till  morning,  reminding  him  that  we  could  not  do  anything 
till  daylight.  With  English  stupidity,  he  said  he  didn't 
think  so  far  as  that,  and  didn't  suppose  I  was  asleep,  as  he 
was  not!  And  back  to  bed  I  went,  withouteven  thankinghim 
for  thus  disturbing  me.  In  the  morning  we  again  repaired 
to  the  old  clerk,  and  found  at  last  the  name  of  Mr.  Rogers's 
correspondent.  He  was  a  very  shrewd  lawyer,  so  said 
the  old  clerk,  and  I  "  wormed  out "  of  him  that  the  fellow 


THE  RIGHT  OF  REPENTANCE.  477 

was  rather  "  tricky."  At  this  time  I  knew  nothing  of  Mr. 
Rogers's  affair  with  the  Vermont  lawyer.  He  was  rather 
ashamed  of  that,  and  I  never  heard  a  word  about  it  till  my 
visit  to  England  subsequently.  It  was  arranged  that  I 
go  alone  out  to  Pinckney,  about  twenty-five  miles  west,  or 
north-west  of  St.  Louis,  and  I  departed  —  found  the  law- 
yer ;  and  I  would  like  to  give  his  full  name,  .for  reasons 
which  will  suggest  themselves  to  the  reader  as  he  goes 
on,  but  the  man  is  still  living,  I  hear ;  has  since  been  a 
member  of  Congress  (from  another  State  than  Missouri, 
however),  and  is  believed  to  be  a  very  honest,  upright 
man  in  his  present  neighborhood ;  and,  perhaps,  he  has 
properly  won  the  esteem  he  enjoys.  I  believe  in  the 
right  and  privilege  of  scoundrels  to  repent,  if  they  are  so 
inclined  (and  here  let  me  interpolate,  that,  in  my  opinion, 
if  society  at  large  would  recognize  and  respect  such  right 
and  privilege,  many  a  villain,  who  now  preys  upon  com- 
munities, would  lead  a  respectable  life ;  and  nine  tenths  of 
the  poor  fallen  women,  now  "  hedged  in  "  (as  that  piquant 
and  humanitary  author,  Miss  Elizabeth  Phelps,  would  ex- 
press it),  by  the  unforgiving  spirit  of  the  times,  and  con- 
fined to  the  low  estate  into  which  they  are  fallen,  would 
abandon  their  unhappy  mode  of  life,  and  become  true  and 
pure  women  again ;  and  many  of  them,  too,  become  the 
very  best,  noblest,  and  greatest  women  of  the  age). 

Well,  I  found  the  lawyer ;  and  such  a  man  I  never  en- 
countered before.  Affable,  "  good-looking  "  in  the  general, 
but  with  a  something  so  devilish  about  him  —  something 
indefinable  —  I  have  never  met  another  like  him,  save 
within  the  last  year  from  this  writing,  when  I  was  closeted 
at  the  gubernatorial  rooms  with  the  governor  of  a  cer- 
tain Southern  State,  —  the  keenest  mere  politician,  per- 
haps, now  on  the  stage.  I  made  my  errand  known  at  once 
to  the  lawyer,  that  is,  I  told  him  that  I  came  as  the  emis- 
sary of  his  English  correspondent,  Mr.  Rogers,  and  at  the 
same  time  handed  him  a  short  note  of  introduction,  which 
Mr.  Rogers  had  prepared  just  before  I  started.  This  was 


478  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

a  mistake  ;  but  I  never  suspected  that  I  should  find  such 
a  man  to  deal  with.  As  he  opened  the  note,  he  turned  hi. 
back  upon  me,  but  a  little  too  late,  evidently,  to  hide  an 
expression  of  triumph  on  his  face.  I  instantly  euspected 
foul  play,  and  as  instantly  put  myself  into  the  mood  to  re- 
ceive it. 

"  Ah,"  my  friend  Rogers  has  got  as  far  as  St.  Louis,  on 
his  scent  ?  "  said  he,  turning  about  to  me.  "  What  does  he 
expect?" 

"  The  note  of  introduction  tells  you  —  does  it  not  ?  " 

"No,  not  exactly;  Mr.  Campbell  "  (the  name  I  had  as- 
sumed, for  the  reader  knows,  who  has  followed  these 
pages,  that  I  had  been  in  St.  Louis  before,  and  there  was 
a  good  reason  now  why  I  should  not  appear  upon  the  reg- 
ister of  the  hotel  by  any  of  my  old  names) ;  but  tell  me 
what  sort  of  a  man  is  this  Mr.  Rogers.  I  have  never  seen 
him.  I  can  only  judge  by  his  writing." 

"  Well,  what  do  you  judge  by  his  writing  ?  "  I  asked, 
resolved  to  tell  him  as  little  as  need  be. 

"  I  hardly  know,  in  fact.  Is  he  a  pretty  resolute  man  — 
man  of  sanguinary  temperament  2  " 

"  I  am  not  technically  acquainted  with  temperaments  — 
couldn't  tell  what  you  would  call  his." 

"  Well,  describe  him ;  is  he  large  or  small,  red  or  black- 
haired  ;  old  or  young ;  hearty  or  ill  ?  " 

"  You've  seen  a  good  many  Englishmen  in  your  life,  I 
suppose,"  I  replied. 

"  O,  yes,  sir ;  a  great  many." 

"  Well,  to  my  eye,  he's  pretty  much  like  all  the  rest." 

"  That's  not  very  definite,  sir ;  but  I  suppose  you  don't 
study  these  matters  of  temperament,  etc.,  as  much  as  we 
lawyers  do.  It  is  a  part  of  our  business.  We  must  know 
our  clients  in  order  to  serve  them  well." 

"  But,  in  this  case,  I  don't  see  why  it  is  necessary  to 
know  your  client  at  all.  No  matter  who  he  is ;  all  lie 
wants  is  to  find  Mr.  Frederic  Hague,  and  I  have  come  t.. 
you  to  learn  where  he  is,  with  instructions  from  Mr.  Rog- 


GETTING  HIS   TERMS.  479 

ers  to  pay  you  for  the  trouble  you  have  been  at,  and  for 
whatever  further  assistance  you  may  render  him,"  I  re- 
plied. 

"Yes,  yes;  well- — I  should  —  should  rather  like  to  see 
Mr.  Rogers  first,"  drawlingly  responded  he ;  and  1  felt 
that  I  was  in  the  hands  of  a  practised  scoundrel,  as  well 
as  a  practising  lawyer,  and  I  resolved  to  bring  matters  to 
a  focus  at  once ;  and  so  I  inquired, "  Well,  sir,  what  is  your 
bill  for  past  services,  and  what  will  you  demand  for  point- 
ing out  Mr.  Hague  ?  Is  he  here  with  you  ?  " 

"No,  he's  not  in  this  quarter  now.  I  mean  he  lives 
in  another  State,"  returned  he,  hurriedly ;  for  that  word 
"  now "  had  escaped  his  lips  undesignedly. 

"  Well,  I  reckon  I  shall  have  to  charge  Mr.  Rogers  five 
hundred  dollars  for  the  trouble  I've  been  at.  It  has  cost 
a  great  deal  of  anxiety." 

"  Why,  sir,  if  I  understand  Mr.  Rogers  aright,  your  cor- 
respondence with  him  was  to  the  extent  of  only  a  half 
dozen  letters  at  most;  and  you  are  not  sure  at  that,  it 
would  seem,  from  what  he  says  you  wrote  him,  that  you 
have  found  the  veritable  Frederic  Hague.  Suppose  you 
divide  up  your  bill  —  charge  some  reasonable  sum  for  the 
services  you  have  rendered,  and  let  the  rest  of  the  five 
hundred  remain  contingent  on  your  presenting  to  Mr. 
Rogers  the  real  Mr.  Hague  ?  "  said  I.  This  seemed  to 
open  up  to  him  a  new  vision  of  things. 

"  Well,  I  will,"  said  he  ;  "  give  me  two  hundred  and  fifty 
dollars  down,  and  I  will  wait  for  the  rest  till  I  produce  Mr. 
Hague." 

"  Are  these  your  best  terms  ?  " 

"  Yes  ;  I  must  be  paid  for  my  services,  and  Mr.  Rogers 
can  afford  to  pay,  for  he'll  make  Hague  pay  the  bill  finally, 
of  course." 

"  I  will  report  to  Mr.  Rogers,"  said  I,  "  and  will  let  you 
hear  from  me  in  a  few  days  at  most,"  I  said.  "  Good  day, 
sir." 

He  bade  me  a  very  pleasant  day,  hoped  I'd  have  a  pleas- 


480  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

ant  ride  back  to  St.  Louis,  and  that  our  acquaintance, "  so 
pleasantly  inaugurated "  (to  use  his  own  words),  would 
continue,  etc.,  in  a  most  fascinating  way,  as  if  he  felt  that 
his  little  scheme  for  putting  five  hundred  new  dollars  iu 
his  pocket  was  already  a  confirmed  success. 

But  I  had  no  notion  at  all  that  Mr.  Rogers  would  suffer 
himself  to  be  bled  to  the  tune  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  dol- 
lars on  a  decided  uncertainty,  and  two  hundred  and  fifty 
more,  too,  on  another  uncertainty  ;  and  as  that  little  word 
"  now  "  had  not  escaped  my  notice,  I  thought  best  to  in- 
stitute some  inquiries  in  the  village  about  this  Mr.  Hague 
before  I  left.  So,  returning  to  the  little  hotel,  where  I 
stopped,  I  inquired  about  the  lawyer  in  the  place  and 
vicinity,  and  soon  found  out  who  among  them  was  this 
lawyer's  greatest  foe,  —  the  thing  I  wished  to  learn ;  and 
finding  that  he  lived  in  an  adjoining  town,  about  five  miles 
away,  I  procured  a  horse  and  rode  over  there  to  consult 
him.  He  was  quite  the  opposite  of  the  other  in  personal 
appearance.  Mr.  John  Howe  (now  dead,  I  hear  with 
regret,  for  he  was  one  of  those  men  who  ought  to  live  al- 
ways) was  a  frank,  open-hearted,  sturdy  man,  of  fine  in- 
tellect, scorning  to  do  mean  things,  and  was,  by  nature, 
the  uncompromising  foe  of  such  men  as  the  one  I  had  just 
left.  So  I  found  him,  and  the  more  I  talked  with  him  tho 
less  homely  he  grew  to  my  eye ;  for  I  confess  he  was  called; 
in  the  vernacular  of  Jhat  quarter,  "  the  homeliest  man,  by 
a  heap,  around  these  yere  diggins."  But  he  was  good, 
and  that's  "  better  than  riches." 

I  told  him  my  story.  He  wasn't  at  all  surprised  at  the 
lawyer's  exactions,  and  told  me  that  he  doubted  anybody's 
being  about  there  by  the  name  of  Hague.  Said  that  he 
had  seen  a  man  in  the  lawyer's  office  some  three  months 
before  that  would  answer  the  description  I  gave  of  Hague, 
as  to  age,  etc.,  but  said  I  would  find  he  was  known  by 
some  other  name ;  that  the  lawyer  had  doubtless  picked 
him  up  on  speculation,  having  probably  seen  one  of  the 
advertisements,  and  that  Hague  himself  was  in  his  power, 


THE  WARD.  481 

And  had  probably  been  induced  to  change  his  name.  He 
said  the  lawyer  had  a  plantation  in  Arkansas,  and  occa- 
sionally went  down  to  New  Orleans.  So  that  it  would  not 
be  strange  if  he  had  encountered  "  Hague  "  somewhere, 
and  brought  him  home,  and  made  a  sort  of  servant  of  him, 
while  he  was  carrying  on  the  correspondence.  The  man 
he  had  in  his  office  was  a  wreck,  and  in  his  poverty  easily 
controllable. 

Mr.  Howe  agreed  to  make  all  inquiry  possible  into  the 
matter  at  once,  and  I  went  back  to  the  village ;  and  mak- 
ing sundry  acquaintances,*!  inquired  after  new  comers, 
and  eventually  found  that  there  was  occasionally  in  the 
village,  and  sometimes  with  the  lawyer,  a  fellow  called 
John  Dinsmore,  who,  on  a  drunken  occasion,  two  months 
or  so  before,  had  boasted  that  he  was  the  ward  of  an 
English  lord,  and  had  large  estates  in  England,  and  that 

he  was  going  back,  by  and  by,  with  Squire  (the 

lawyer)  to  get  his  property.  This  was  considered  a  drunk- 
en man's  idle  boast,  and  would  have  been  forgotten  but  for 
my  inquiry.  I  found  out  what  persons  had  been  most  seen 
with  this  John,  —  for  I  was  sure  he  was  the  man  I  wanted 
to  find  —  and  left  some  money  in  my  informant's  hands 4o 
encourage  him  in  "  the  field  of  research,"  and  instructed 
him  to  find  out  in  as  adroit  a  way  as  he  could,  where  John 
could  be  found ;  and  back  I  went  to  St.  Louis,  to  see  Mr. 
Rogers.  I  told  him  of  my  visit  to  the  lawyer,  and  its  re- 
sults, without  stating  at  first  what  I  had  subsequently  done. 

As  I  expected,  Mr.  Rogers  was  very  wroth ;  but  finally 
said,  he  supposed  he  would  have  to  pay  the  five  hundred 
dollars ;  he  had  come  too  far  to  lose  his  game  now,  he 
said.  Whereupon  I  told  him  I  hoped  we  should  be  able 
to  avoid  the  exaction,  and  "  take  in  "  the  lawj'er  —  play  a 
sharp  game  on  him ;  and  told  him  what  further  I  had 
learned.  The  old  man  brightened  up,  and  said  he'd  rather 
spend  two  hundred  pounds,  in  his  own  way,  than  be  swin- 
dled out  of  a  hundred ;  and  told  me  to  "  go  ahead,"  and  take 
my  own  time  for  a  while.  I  went  back  to  Warren  County, 


482  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

and  got  scent  of  my  man.  A  boon  companion  of  his  had 
told  my  "  spy  "  that  John  had  gone  off  to  the  lawyer's  plan- 
tation in  Arkansas,  where  he  was  a  sort  of  supernumerary 
overseer ;  but  where  the  plantation  lay,  nobody  knew  with- 
in nearer  than  fifty  miles ;  at  least  my  man  could  get  no 
definite  information.  So  I  instructed  my  friend  how  to 
act,  and  sent  him  over  to  the  lawyer's  with  a  statement 
that  a  cousin  of  his  (my  friend)  had  got  it  into  his  head 
to  buy  out  a  plantation  somewhere  in  Arkansas  ;  that  he 
had  a  plenty  of  money,  and  wanted  a  good  plantation,  and 
would  stock  it  well ;  that  he  was  coming  down  from  Lew- 
is County  in  a  few  days,  and  wanted  him  to  go  on  "  pros- 
pecting "  with  him.  Could  the  lawyer  give  him  any  idea 
of  where  such  a  plantation  could  be  found? 

The  bait  took.  The  lawyer  was  not  only  ready  to  have 
good  neighbors  to  his  plantation,  but  was  ready  to  sell  his 
own  for  "  a  fair  price."  Of  course  this  led  to  the  naming 
of  the  place,  and  the  time  it  would  take  to  go  there.  The 
plantation  was  in  the  vicinity  of  Gascony,  Jefferson  Coun- 
ty, on  the  Arkansas  River,  as  rny  friend  reported,  on  his 
return  from  the  lawyer's,  and  I  felt  easy.  I  rode^over  to 
se*e  Squire  Howe,  and  told  him  of  the  situation  of  things. 
Meanwhile  he  had  been  active,  and  had  learned  that  John 
Dinsmoce  was  the  name  of  the  man  he  had  seen  in  the  law- 
yer's, and  that  he  had  gone  to  the  plantation  in  Arkansas.  So 
I  felt  quite  assured  that  we  were  on  the  right  track.  That 
night  I  went  back  to  the  village  —  called  next  day  on  the 
lawyer,  and  told  him  that  Mr.  Rogers  would  not  pay  him 
over  a  hundred  dollars  to  produce  Mr.  Hague ;  to  which 
he  replied,  in  a  very  gruff  and  decided  way,  — 

"  He  can't  have  him  short  of  my  first  figures ;  no,  he 
shall  not  have  him  now  for  less  than  a  thousand  dollars." 

"  Well,"  said  I,  "  that  ends  the  matter.  Mr.  Rogers  will 
return  to  England.  I  think,  without  his  man,  rather  than 
pay  you  over  a  hundred  dollars.  It  won't  be  any  loss  to 
him,  except  what  he  has  already  been  at,  if  he  don't  find 
him  ;  but,"  said  I,  "  I  guess  we'll  leave  it  this  way.  You 


AT  NEW   GASCONY,   ARKANSAS.  483 

may  hear  from  him  again  or  you*  may  not.     He  will  not 
remain  in  this  country  over  a  month  longer,  at  most." 

"  O,  he  won't  go  away  without  his  man,"  said  he,  "  with 
a  soft,  oily  voice  ;  "  he'll  think  better  of  it,  and  pay  the 
money,  before  he  returns." 

"  Perhaps  so,"  said  I ;  and  1  bade  him  a  pleasant  good 
day.  We  shook  hands  quite  cordially,  and  I  got  off  to 
St.  Louis  as  soon  as  possible,  and  the  next  day  in  the 
afternoon  found  us  on  board  the  steamer  "  Pike,  No.  9," — a 
Cincinnati  and  New  Orleans  boat,  which  had  been  run  out 
of  line  up  to  St.  Louis,  on  an  extra  occasion,  —  on  our  way 
to  Napoleon,  Arkansas,  where  we  arrived  duly,  with  no 
noticeable  incidents  on  board  (save  one,  and  that  is  the 
key  to  another  narrative  I  may  write  out  for  this  work), 
"  always  excepting,"  of  course,  "  as  worthy  of  note,"  the 
gambling,  tippling,  bowie-knife  exercises,  and  so  forth,  by 
which  steamboating  on  the  Mississippi  used,  more  than 
in  later  years,  to  be  rendered  "  interesting  and  fascinat- 
ing ; "  and  the  next  day  the  shaky  steamboat  "  Little  Rock  " 
bore  us  on  our  way  up  the  Arkansas. 

We  arrived  safely  at  Gascony,  and  were  not  many  hours 
in  finding  our  way  to  the  plantation,  and  in  the  presence 
of  Frederic  Hague,  alias  John  Dinsmore.  Mr.  Rogers  was 
a  most  delighted  man,  when,  by  sundry  questions,  he  as- 
sured himself  of  the  identity  of  the  man;  but  he  could  not 
be  satisfied  till  Hague  pulled  off  his  flannel  wrapper  (for 
he  wore  no  shirt,  poor  fellow,  and  everybody  who  can 
wears  flannels,  in  that  region,  in  summer  as  well  as  win- 
ter). The  dirty  old  wrapper  tore  into  pieces  in  the  opera- 
tion;  and  I  dare  say  that  Hague  had  not  removed  it  before 
in  two  months.  But  there  was  the  "  private  mark."  There 
was  no  disputing  that ;  and  Mr.  Rogers  ordered,  on  the 
evening  of  that  day,  the  richest  dinner  ever  cooked,  I  pre- 
sume, at  a  country  hotel  in  that  State.  He  did  not  for- 
swear wines,  such  as  they  were,  and  both  he  and  Hague 
put  me  quite  to  shame  with  the  amount  of  liquor  they 
drank.  But  I  must  hasten  with  my  story. 

19* 


484  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

We  learned  from  Hague  that  the  Missouri  lawyer  had 
picked  him  up  at  Napoleon  one  day,  learned  something  of 
his  history,  called  to  mind  an  advertisement  he  had  seen, 
took  him  on  to  Missouri,  as  he  was  at  that  time  on  his  way 
home,  and  had  a  written  contract  with  him  for  one  half  of 
his  estate,  if  he  should  recover  it.  He  had  kept  him  there 
and  on  the  plantation  in  Arkansas,  and  sometimes  wrote 
him,  always  encouragingly,  about  the  matter  of  the  estate. 
Hague  had  got  it  into  his  head  that  that  lawyer  was  the 
only  authorized  person  to  treat  with,  and  he  was  jubilant 
when  he  found  himself  out  of  his  clutches. 

We  were  to  return  to  St.  Louis,  in  any  event,  to  see  after 
some  manufacturing  matters  in  which  Mr.  Rogers  had  taken 
some  interest,  and  I  felt,  and  so  did  Hague,  that  it  would  be 
well  enough  to  have  a  little  fun  with  the  lawyer.  So,  after 
we  arrived  at  St.  Louis,  I  went  out  to  Warren  County  to 
see  him  again,  and  told  him  I  was  ready  to  give  him  the 
two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  down,  and  two  hundred  and 
fifty  more  on  his  producing  the  identical  Frederic  Hague, 
if  he  would  put  himself  under  bonds'of  five  hundred  dol- 
lars, or  put  the  money  in  the  hands  of  the  village  landlord, 
to  be  paid  over  to  me  in  case  his  Frederic  Hague  should, 
tinder  my  cross-examination,  fail  to  assert  himself  to  be  the 
true  Frederic  Hague.  He  assented,  being  positively  sure 
of  his  five  hundred  dollars,  as  he  thought,  and  I  drew  up 
to  his  table  and  scratched  off  a  short  agreement,  taking 
care  to  word  it  as  indicated  above.  He  was  to  produce 
Hague  within  a  week  and  a  half  or  two  weeks,  and  I  was 
to  wait  there  or  in  St.  Louis. 

The  next  day  Hague  came  straggling  along,  playing 
drunk,  and  told  the  lawyer  a  proper  story ;  and  he  told 
Hague  his  time  was  come  —  that  an  Englishman  would  be 
there  to  see  him,  and  take  him  home,  to  restore  to  him  his 
estate,  and  he  wanted  Hague  to  make  some  alteration  in 
their  contract.  Hague  consented,  but  when  he  got  the 
paper  in  his  hands  ho  feigned  crazy,  had  a  fit,  a  proper 


AT  THE  LAWYER'S  OFFICE.  485 

one,  and  tore  and  in  part  ate  up  the  contract,  and  felt  "  re- 
lieved," as  he  said  afterwards. 

The  lawyer  caused  me  to  be  sent  for.  Luckily,  as  he 
thought,  I  had  not  left  the  village.  When  I  reached  his 
office  he  took  me  aside  very  privately,  and  told  me  the 
"  bird  "  had  dropped  down  upon  him,  all  of  a  sudden,  in  a 
very  providential  way,  and  that  now  he  would  show  me 
Mr.  Hague,  when  1  was  ready  to  deposit,  and  he  would  do 
the  same.  The  landlord  was  sent  for,  preliminaries  ar- 
ranged, and  Frederic  Hague  called  in.  The  lawyer  ques- 
tioned him  before  me,  and  he  answered  all  clearly,  even  to 
having  a  "  private  mark  on  his  shoulder,"  etc. 

"  He's  your  witness  now,"  said  the  lawyer,  triumphantly, 
probably  feeling  the  five  hundred  dollars  itching  in  his 
palms.  And  1  commenced,  with  confidence  of  success,  for 
Hague  and  I  had  practised  "  our  parts,"  and  "  rehearsed  " 
to  my  satisfaction. 

"  You  say  your  name  is  '  Frederic  Hague  '  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sir." 

"  How  do  you  know  ?  " 

«  That's  what  they  call  me." 

"  Ah  !  well,  do  they  call  you  anything  else  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sir." 

"  What  ?  " 

"John  Dinsmore." 

"  Then  John  Dinsmore  is  as  much  your  name  as  Fred- 
eric Hague  ? " 

«  Yes,  sir." 

"  Who  calls  you  John  Dinsmore  ?  " 

"  Everybody  here  and  in  Arkansas." 

"  Who  first  called  you  John  Dinsmore  ?  " 

«  Mr. "  (the  lawyer) ;  "  he  gave  me  the  name  — 

said  that  was  my  proper  name;  and  I've  used  it  ever 
since." 

"  Who  gave  you  the  name  Frederic  Hague  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know." 


480  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

"  Were  you  ever  in  England,  sir?  Come,  now,  sir,  tell 
the  truth,  and  no  lying." 

"  Seems  as  though  I  was." 

"  Seems  so?     What  makes  it  seem  so?" 

"  Why,  I  suppose  it  is  because  Mr. "  (the  lawyer), 

"  has  told  me  so  so  often." 

"  Has  he  told  you  about  one  Frederic  Hague,  a  man  by 
the  same  name  you  sometimes  have  borne  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sir." 

"  A  great  deal  ?  " 

«  Yes,  sir." 

"  And  you  have  come  to  think  that  you  are  that  Frederic 
Hague  ?  Now,  sir,  tell  me  if  you  dare  assert  that  you  are 
the  veritable  Frederic  Hague,  the  heir  to  the  estate  of  one 
Oliver  Hague,  about  which  he  has  told  you  ?  Don't  let  us 
have  anything  but  the  truth  now,  sir." 

"  No,  sir ;  I  don't  say  that  I  dare  assert  it." 

"  Did  you  ever  have  any  notice  that  you  were  entitled 

to  any  property  at  all  in  England,  till  Air. told  you 

so?" 

"  No,  sir." 

"  Well,  do  you  now  think  you  are  entitled  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know  anything  about  it  —  " 

"  O,  the  fool,"  here  broke  in  the  lawyer;  "he's  stultified, 
or  he's  lied  to  me.  Here, '  John/  show  this  man  the  scars 
on  your  shoulder,  and  tell  him  the  story  you  told  me 
about  it." 

"  What  story  ?  " 

"  Why  the  story  about  the  fall  in  the  carriage  house." 

"  Why,  I  never  told  you  any  such  story  —  did  I  ?  I  told 
you  I  had  a  dream  once ;  I  suppose  that  is  what  you 
mean,"  said  John,  stripping  himself  meanwhile. 

"  There  ! "  exclaimed  the  lawyer,  "  there  are  unmistak- 
able marks ;  and  they  tell,  bf  themselves,  how  they  got 
there  —  cut  with  hatchel  teeth." 

And  John,  alias  Frederic,  roared  out,  with  a  well-feigned 


THE  JOKE. -MONEY  RETURNED.  489 

laugh,  "  Yes,  hatchel  teeth,  in  Bill  Currier's  coach-dog's 
mouth,  down  to  Mobile  ! " 

The  lawyer  looked  confounded  —  and  he  put  "  John  " 
through  a  severe  re-examination  ;  all  to  no  avail,  except  to 
force  John  into  some  rather  bold  species  of  story-telling. 

The  landlord  decided  the  case  in  my  favor,  according  to 
the  contract  between  the  lawyer  and  me,  and  gave  me  the 
five  hundred  dollars  on  our  return  to  his  hotel.  I  got 
Frederic  Hague  to  St.  Louis  as  soon  as  I  could,  and  we 
proceeded  to  New  York.  I  let  my  friend  there  into  the 
joke  by  letter,  and  told  him  to  make  the  most  of  the  story 
for  a  month,  when  I  would  return  the  lawyer  all  his 
money,  except  what  it  had  cost  me  — the  matter  of  forty- 
five  dollars  —  to  play  the  joke  on  him,  saying  that  he 
ought  to  be  willing  to  pay  for  his  fun  ;  and  at  the  end  of  a 
month,  after  the  story  had  gone  far  and  near,  how  the 
lawyer  had  set  his  bait  to  fish  out  an  estate  for  a  client, 
and  had  lost  five  hundred  dollars  himself,  the  money  was 
duly  returned  to  him  through  draft  on  a  St.  Louis  bank ; 
and  that  was  not  the  last  I  heard  of  him.  But  I  cannot 
stop  to  tell  the  full  story  here. 

Mr.  Frederic  Hague,  neatly  dressed,  and  apparently  in 
excellent  health,  though  by  no  means  strong, —  his  nervous 
system  having  been  shattered  by  his  rough  western  life, 
—  and  Mr.  Rogers,  after  a  trip  to  Montreal  and  Boston, 
took  steamer  from  New  York  for  Liverpool. 

Mr.  Rogers  was  one  of  the  most  victorious,  haughty- 
looking  men  I  ever  saw,  as  he  stepped  on  to  the  steamer's 
deck,  with  Frederic  Hague  by  his  side.  Up  to  within  one 
or  two  of  my  last  interviews  with  him,  he  always  vaunted 
himself  as  struggling  in  the  cause  of  justice  only  ;  but  at 
last  he  allowed  some  remarks  to  escape  him  about  Mr. 
Edward  Hague,  and  how  chopfallen  he  would  ieel  when 
Frederic  should  appear  on  the  tapis.  And  my  curiosity 
being  awakened,  I  sounded  him  considerably,  the  rest  I 
learned  in  England  afterwards. 

Mr.  Rogers  was  very  liberal  with  me,  paid  me  very  hand- 


490  KNOTS    UNTIED. 

somely,  and  treated  me  most  heritably  when  I  visited  hjm 
at  home.  But  the  poor  man  was  destined  to  lose  his  almost 
won,  but  foolish,  triumph.  Four  days  yut,  Frederic,  meet- 
ing on  board  a  couple  of  men  whom  he  had  known,  the  one 
in  New  Orleans,  and  the  other  at  Louisville,  Kentucky, 
he  had  served  in  the  care  of  horses,  —  these  men  were 
cousins,  it  appeared,  —  must  needs  tell  them -of  his  vast 
estates  in  prospect,  which  he  was  just  going  over  to  claim. 
These  men  were  high  livers,  and  took  along  their  own 
wines  and  liquors,  and  of  these,  with  them,  Mr.  Hague 
partook  very  liberally,  got  ravingly  intoxicated,  and  howling 
about  the  deck  one  night,  while  something  of  a  breeze  was 
blowing ;  and  the  ship  ploughing  a  little,  he  was  toppled 
over  the  rail,  as  she  suddenly  lurched,  into  the  unquiet 
Avaters.  Every  effort  was  made  to  save  him.  The  steam 
was  shut  off,  the  life-boats  lowered,  and  search  made  for  a 
whole  hour,  without  avail.  The  darkness  was  too  great 
to  permit  him  to  be  easily  found,  if  he  had  not  drowned  at 
once. 

Of  course,  Mr.  Rogers  went  home  a  wiser,  and  perhaps 
better  man.  He  had,  unfortunately  for  his  pride,  written 
a  triumphant  letter  home,  stating  that  he  had  found  the 
veritable  Frederic,  and  that  he  should  bring  him  by  the 
next,  or  the  second  steamer  thereafter,  and  would  then 
teach  Edward  Hague  good  manners.  But  it  was  difficult 
to  learn  anything  from  him,  I  was  told,  after  he  arrived  at 
home. 

The  terms  of  the  will  were  such,  that  the  property  went 
to  Mr.  Edward  Hague ;  and  when  I  met  him,  he  was  living 
in  most  comfortable  style,  but  without  any  attempt  at  vain 
show.  He  was  satisfied  with  his  possessions,  and  was  not 
a  little  amused  when  I  told  him  of  Mr.  Rogers's  personal 
exertions  in  America  "  in  the  cause  of  justice  and  truth ; " 
but  said  he  was  sorry  Frederic  had  not  lived  to  enjoy 
something  of  life,  and  that  he  had  no  doubt  Frederic  would 
have  been  kind  to  him.  In  fact,  I  found  Mr.  Edward 
Hague  one  of  the  most  lovable  of  men,  and  I  confess  that 


"PRIVATE   MAKK."  491 

I  think  the '  property  in  his  hands  was  made  more  useful 
to  a  larger  number  than  it  probably  would  have  been  in 
Frederic's  hands,  for  he  had  learned  some  bad  habits  in 
America,  among  which  was  the  inveterate  one  of  gambling. 
I  never  think  of  Mr.  Rogers  without  laughing ;  and  so, 
with  a  laugh,  I  leave  him  now,  and  the  fortune,  and  the 
"  private  mark." 


WILLIAM  ROBERTS  AND  HIS  FORGERIES. 


A  MAN  OF  THE  OLDEN  TYPE  —  HIS  SAD  8TORT  ABODT  HIS  WIFE  AXD 
HIMSELF  —  THEY  ADOPT  A  BRIGHT  BOY  —  THE  WIFE'S  PROPHET  SPECU- 
LATIONS ABOUT  THE  BOY  —  THE  BOY  GROWS  UP,  AND  GOES  TO  COLLEGE 

A  PLEASANT   YEAR  —  HE  LEARNS   CERTAIN   MYSTERIES    OF    LIFE 

STUDENTS'  PITCHED  BATTLE  WITH  THE  FACULTY  OF  THE  COLLEGE  — 
OF  THE  "WHITE  HORSE"  —  A  WHILE  IN  A  LAWYER'S  OFFICE — BE- 
COMES A  MERCHANT MAKING  MONEY  TOO  FAST A  FATAL  HOUR 

THE  VORTEX  OF  WALL  STREET  —  SUNDRY  FORGERIES  —  A  STRANGE 
CAREER — AN  IMPORTANT  WITNESS  LOST,  AND  FOUND  IN  THE  INSANE 
RETREAT,  HARTFORD,  CONN.  —  A  TERRIBLE  COMPLICATION  OF  AFFAIRS  ; 
LAWYERS  AND  ALL  BAFFLED  —  I  AM  CALLED  IN  TO  WORK  UP  THE  CASE 
—  DIFFICULTIES  ENCOUNTERED  —  FATE  INTERPOSES  —  WENTWORTH,  THE 
INSANE  WITNESS,  RECOVERS  —  A  VAST  DIFFERENCE  BETWEEN  BLACK 
INK  AND  BLUE  INK  —  DYING  OF  GRIEF  —  AN  UNHAPPY  HOUSEHOLD. 

I  WAS  sitting  one  day  in  my  office,  about  noon,  in  July, 
1858,  with  windows  up,  coat  off,  my  legs  sprawled  upon 
the  table,  and  fanning  myself  for  a  breath  of  living  air  out 
of  the  sweltering  atmosphere.  I  had  tried  to  enjoy  my 
position  (but  there  was  no  joy  for  me  on  that  day)  only  a 
few  minutes,  when  I  heard  a  strong  tap  at  the  open  door, 
and  without  looking  around,  I  called  out,  "  Come  in  ! "  with 
what  I  suspect  was  a  peculiar  emphasis,  for  presently  an 
old  man  stood  before  me  aghast,  as  if  he  knew  not  what  to 
think. 

"  You  are  Mr. ?  " 

"  Yes,  sir,  the  same." 

"Mr. ,  the  detective  officer?" 

"Yes,  sir,  the  detective  officer.  But  pray,  sir,  take  a 
seat,"  said  I,  seeing  that  the  man  meant  business,  doubt- 
less ;  and  I  pointed  him  to  a  seat  near  the  window. 


THE   "TORRID"  AND   '-ARCTIC"  MEET.  493 

"  What  can  I  do  for  you,  sir  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  That's  just  what  I've  come  to  see,"  said  he. 

I  scanned  the  man.  He  was  evidently  from  the  country. 
His  manner  and  dress  showed  this ;  but  there  was  some- 
thing remarkably  intelligent  about  his  well-cut,  smoothly- 
shaven  face,  which,  was  square  at  the  base,  with  those  wide 
cheeks,  which  distinguished  so  many  of  the  rare  men  of 
revolutionary  days.  Jefferson's  face  will  give  one  a  good 
notion  of  what  I  mean.  This  style  of  face  has  gone  almost 
"  out  of  fashion "  in  these  days,  only  one  here  and  there 
having  been  transmitted  by  the  sires  of  the  republic.  I 
am  always  attracted  to  these  faces,  and  although  they  de- 
note firmness,  amounting  to  obstinacy  sometimes,  I  have 
never  found  one  not  belonging  to  a  man  of  unquestioned 
respectability  and  probity. 

"  It's  a  warm  day,  sir,"  said  I,  as  he  took  his  seat ;  "  and 
you  must  pardon  me  for  my  being  in  undress,  sir;  but, 
really,  I  can't  endure  a  coat  to-day.  Wouldn't  you  like  to 
pull  off  your  own?  Make  yourself  perfectly  at  home, 
sir." 

"  0,  no,  sir ;  thank  you.  /  am  not  warm ;  on  the  other 
hand,  I  am  cold,"  and  the  old  man  buttoned  his  coat  about 
him. 

I  was  surprised,  for  I  saw  that  he  was  evidently  healthy, 
and  then  I  conjectured  that  his  frigidity  on  that  hot  day 
must  proceed  from  intense  mental  suffering,  and  I  asked 
him,  — 

"  Did  you  call  to  see  me  professionally  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sir ;  I  have  been  recommended  by  my  attorney, 
Judge  Hoffman,  to  call  upon  you  and  lay  a  case  before  you, 
which  he  says  you  may  possibly  be  able  to  work  out ;  and 
if  you  can't,  he  tells  me  to  give  up  trying  further.  He 
has  exhausted  his  powers  upon  it,  and  my  all  depends  upon 
it,"  and  the  old  man's  voice  discovered  a  slight  tremor  as 
he  uttered  the  last  words,  and  excited  my  interest  in- 
tensely. 

"  Tell  me  your  story  in  detail,  leaving  out  nothing  that 
29 


404  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

you  can  remember,  however  trivial,  and  1  will  listen  pa- 
tiently ;  take  your  time." 

The  old  gentleman,  taking  me  at  my  word,  and  beginning 
with  a  "  You  must  know,"  recited  his  own  early  history, 
which  had  no  bearing  on  the  case  in  issue,  as  I  soon  saw  : 
but  I  let  him  go  on;  so  much  had  his  real  trouble  weighed 
upon  his  mind  that  he  seemed  to  think  the  line  which  led 
to  it  ran  through  his  whole  life. 

He  was  a  farmer  and  a  country  merchant,  who  had,  at 
the  age  of  twenty-two,  succeeded  to  the  estate  of  his  father, 
who  was  also  a  farmer  and  a  merchant ;  that  is,  he  "  kept 
store  "  in  a  respectable  country  farming  town,  and  "  can  i>  1 
on  farming  "  besides,  with  the  aid  of  "  hired  men,"  whom 
he  supervised.  He  was  a  man — that  is,  my  visitor — of 
more  than  ordinary  information,  probably  a  great  reader, 
and  at  one  time  the  leading  '•  Whig "  of  his  place  —  the 
village  oracle,  in  fact,  at  whose  "  store  "  the  country  people 
gathered  of  nights  to  hear  him  talk  politics,  and  doubtless 
to  debate  among  themselves  the  issues  of  those  days  when 
Clay  was  the  idol  of  the  great,  respectable  Whig  party  of 
the  land.  The  old  man  was  able  to  narrate  a  story  with 
great  fidelity,  and  showed  a  mind  well  disciplined.  I  had 
but  few  questions  to  ask  him,  as  he  went  on  in  his  narra- 
tive, and  when  he  had  concluded,  I  had  already  conceive*  1 
a  theory  of  the  case,  which  in  due  time  I  proceeded  to 
verify  in  practice. 

He  was  then  seventy-eight  years  old,  he  said ;  was  mar- 
ried at  thirty-four,  his  wife  still  living.  They  had  had  one 
child,  a  son,  born  in  his  father's  thirty-seventh  year,  but 
who  died  at  the  age  of  four  years,  just  when  he  had  bc- 
.gun  to  be  most  interesting,  the  delight,  of  course,  of  his 
parents.  The  old  man  descanted,  in  pathetic  terms,  upon 
his  desolation  over  the  loss  of  that  dear  child,  and  said  it 
came  near  bringing  his  mother  to  her  grave;  that  she  had 
never  since  been  the  same  woman  as  before  ;  that  she  never 
laughed  aloud  now,  as  she  used  to  when  they  wore  first 
married,  being  then  a  woman  of  very  jocular  habits,  and 


A  VERY   SAD   WOMAN.  495 

full  of  boisterous  fun.  "  Since  then,"  said  ho,  "  she  has 
only  faintly  smiled,  now  and  then,  over  something  which 
pleased  her  fancy  or  met  her  hearty  approval.  No  ordinary 
occurrence  can  bring  a  smile  or  a  tear  to  her  eye.  But 
she  is  a  dear,  dear  woman ;  and  now  that  a  great  grief  is 
upon  us,  I  suffer  more  for  her  sake  than  my  own." 

The  old  man's  voice  grew  husky  as  he  proceeded,  and  I 
confess  that,  accustomed  though  I  was  to  tales  of  horror, 
and  feeling  always  that  nothing  of  a  wretched  nature  could 
ever  surprise  or  move  me  to  deep  emotions,  I  felt  for  him 
nevertheless,  and  entered  into  the  spirit  of  his  soul  before 
1  knew  what  were  its  griefs. 

The  old  gentleman  continued  his  tale. 

"  For  some  years  after  the  death  of  our  child  my  wife 
was  disconsolate  beyond  my  power  to  give  her  any  relief. 
She  used  to  keep  to  the  house  constantly ;  never  went 
abroad  among  the  neighbors,  but  treated  them  all  kindly 
when  they  called  at  the  house,  and  with  no  diversion  ex- 
cept her  household  duties,  led  almost  a  hermit's  life,  avoid- 
ing seeing  whomsoever  she  decently  could.  I  fitted  up  a 
little  private  room  for  her,  and  beguiling  her  time  with 
reading  and  with  her  devotions  she  spent  most  of  her  days. 
I  sought  every  means  to  comfort  her ;  called  children  to 
the  house  to  play.  She  was  very  fond  of  children,  and 
would  chat  and  chaffer  with  them  to  make  them  happy,  as 
if  she  too  enjoyed  it ;  but  there  was  always  a  sadness 
mingled  with  her  smiles  upon  them  even.  But  I  must  not 
stop  to  tell  you  too  much  of  this.  And  now,  sir,  in  our 
old  age  has  come  a  grief  which  weighs  her  down  as  did 
the  loss  of  our  blessed,  only  child. 

"  I  must  tell  you  that,  after  years  had  passed,  I  finally 
induced  my  wife  to  consent  to  my  adopting  a  bright  boy 
—  a  cheerful,  handsome  lad  of  eight  years  of  age,  whose 
father  was  a  good,  honest  laborer  on  my  farm,  but  had  been 
killed  some  months  before  by  the  falling  upon  him  of  a  tree 
which  he  had  cut.  He  having  lost  his  life  in  my  employ, 
I  felt  a  particular  interest  in  his  family,  and  having  aided 


496  KNOTS    UNTIED. 

the  mother  to  get  situations  for  her  five  other  children, 
had  defrayed  her  expenses  back  (with  an  infant  in  arms) 
to  her  native  place  in  Rhode  Island,  according  to  her 
desire,  and  took  the  boy,  of  whom  I  spoke,  to  bring  up, 
educate,  and  establish  in  business. 

"  At  first  my  wife,  though  she  admired  the  boy's  beauty 
and  his  manners,  which  were  very  gentle,  did  not  open  all 
her  heart  to  him,  and  had  misgivings  that  in  her  state  of 
mind  she  should  be  able  to  do  by  the  boy  as  she  ought. 
And  one  day,  after  he  had  been  with  us  a  few  weeks,  she 
said  to  me,  '  What  if  William  should  not  grow  up  a  good 
man  ?  Sometimes  I  feel,  I  know  not  why,  that  he  will  not. 
He  is  very  "  deep,"  and  if  his  talents,  as  he  grows  up,  should 
chance  to  take  a  wrong  course,  he  might  be  a  very  bad 
man,  and  it  would  break  my  heart  to  think  that  we  had 
brought  him  up  in  the  place  of  our  angel  who  is  in 
heaven/  and  she  burst  into  tears,  and  I  consoled  her ;  but, 
sir,  the  terrible  day  which  she  seemed  to  then  anticipate, 
has  come,  and  her  heart  is  broken  indeed. 

"  I  know,  sir,  you  must  lose  your  patience  to  hear  me 
talk  of  these  things,  but  though  I  am  old  in  years  in  com- 
parison with  you,  yet  it  is  not  years  that  makes  me  so  weak 
today.  I  feel  as  if  I  were  a  hundred  years  old,  and  you 
must  pardon  my  imbecilities." 

I  assured  the  old  man  that  I  was  far  from  being  impatient 
with  his  story,  for  I  knew  full  well  that  he  could  never 
make  me  an  intelligent  narrative  of  the  facts  I  should  need 
to  know,  if  his  business  proved  of  real  importance,  until 
he  had  delivered  his  mind  of  these  special  burdens ;  and 
BO  I  waited  patiently  to  the  end  of  his  story,  which  it 
took  far  more  time  to  reach  than  I  can  afford  in  this 
narrative.  r, 

The  young,  adopted  lad,  William,  it  seems,  enjoyed  all 
the  advantages  of  the  village  school,  and  of  the  preparatory 
academy  in  the  shire  town  of  the  county  in  which  the  old 
man  resided,  and  whither,  at  a  distance  of  some  twelve 
miles  from  his  own  home,  the  old  man  (taking  his  wife 


THE  BOY  AT   COLLEGE.  497 

often)  visited  the  lad  at  least  once  a  week,  and  sometimes 
twice,  especially  if  by  any  means  the  old  gentleman 
could  contrive  to  have  a  "  business  "  excuse  for  going  there, 
during  the  boy's  whole  course  at  the  preparatory  school, 
so  great  was  his  affection  for  him ;  and,  finally,  being  well 
prepared,  and  giving  high  promise  of  becoming  a  great 
scholar,  and  a  great  man,  the  lad,  or  now  well-grown  young 
man,  was  sent  off  to  college.  During  his  first  collegiate 
year  he  bore  himself  faultlessly,  and  achieved  a  high  posi- 
tion in  his  class,  in  some  branches  of  study  being  at  the 
head.  The  old  gentleman  said  that  his  own  pride  was  never 
so  flattered  in  all  his  life  as  when  the  boy  came  home  at  the 
end  of  the  year  and  all  the  village  was  talking  of  the 
honors  he  had  won.  He  said  he  felt  a  relief  then,  as  if  he 
had  a  staff  well  grown,  and  to  grow  still  stronger  and 
stronger  in  the  coming  years,  upon  which  to  lean  in  his 
own  declining  years  —  a  young  counsellor,  whose  judg- 
ment already  good,  would  grow  better  and  better. 

The  boy  had  alway- s  been  good,  courteous,  and  obliging 
to  the  old  man  and  his  wife  ;  but  now,  at  the  end  of  his  first 
collegiate  year,  he  seemed  to  have  grown  still  better,  if 
possible.  Vacation  being  passed  in  perfect  happiness  for 
that  household,  the  old  gentleman  accompanied  William 
back  to  college,  the  wife  bidding  them  God-speed  on  their 
journey,  with  copious  tears  flooding  her  face.  "  Come  back, 
William,  just  as  good  a  boy  as  you  now  are,  and  I  will  try 
to  be  better  to  you  than  I  have  ever  been,"  said  she ;  and 
William  bade  her  dry  her  tears  (while  his  own  blinded  his 
eyes),  told  her  that  she  had  always  been  more  than  a  moth- 
er to  him,  and  assured  her  that  he  thought  of  her  and  his 
happy  home  a  hundred  times  a  day,  and  could  not,  he 
hoped,  but  grow  better  himself  every  time  he  thought 
of  home. 

"  We  thought,"  said  the  old  man, ''  then,  that  that  was  the 
happiest  day  of  our  lives ;  and  when  I  returned  home,  after 
seeing  William  back  again  in  the  college,  we  talked  over, 
day  after  day,  the  happiness  of  the  parting  hour,  and  every 


498  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

letter  we  got  from  William,  who  always  wrote  once  a  week 
at  least,  prompted  us  to  remember  that '  holy  day/  as  we 
called  it,  and  we  talked  it  over  and  over. 

"  But  the  next  collegiate  year  brought  William  home,  with 
a  different  report  about  him.  He  was  still  forward  in  his 
classes,  but  during  the  winter  term  had  begun  to  grow  a 
littk'  wild ;  had  attended  a  dancing-school  privately,  against 
the  rules  of  the  college,  and  had  begun  to  feel  himself 
'  man  enough  to  control  his  own  conduct,'  etc.  Indeed,  on 
account  of  the  expression  of  a  great  degree  of  obstinacy 
and  self-will,  with  not  a  little  defiance  of  the  professors 
on  a  certain  occasion,  when  they  had  thought  best  to 
gently  hint  a  sort  of  reproval  of  some  act  of  his,  William 
had  come  near  being  '  suspended,'  as  the  phrase  is,  for  a 
while  ;  that  is,  dismissed  from  the  college  for  a  season,  to 
return  on  conditions.  But  he  was  not  suspended  finally, 
and  had  come  home  still  a  member  of  the  college.  But  he 
had  had  a  taste  of  certain  liberties,  had  learned  to  look 
upon  some  things,  such  as m  card-playing  for  fun,'  and 
which  he  had  been  used  to  look  upon  with  horror,  as  a  fool- 
i.-h,  sinful  way  of  spending  time,  as  not,  after  all,  so  very 
bad.  But  I  need  not  recite  these  things  ;  for  his  career 
was  from  the  good,  gently  at  first,  and  by  slow  steps  to 
the  bad  —  much  like  that  of  everybody  else  who  has  fol- 
lowed the  like  path.  William  did  not  finish  his  junior 
years,  finding  it  convenient  to  withdraw  from  the  college 
during  the  spring  term  (as  he  was,  by  the  grace  of  the 
faculty,  permitted  to  do,  instead  of  being  expelled,  in 
consideration  of  the  entreaties  of  his  adopted  father,  the 
good  old  man,  who  had  been  sent  for  to  confer  with  the 
faculty).  William  had  been  engaged,  with  a  score  of  other 
students,  in  some  mischief,  which,  though  not  seriously  bad 
at  first,  led  to  a  terrible  fight  between  these  students  and' 
the  authorities  of  the  college-town,  or  city,  rather,  in 
which  William  had  drawn  a  pistol,  and  attempted  to  make 
use  of  it  (as  he  always  claimed,  however,  in  strict  defence 
of  his  life),  against  some  of  the  opposing  party.  But  the 


TEN  THOUSAND  DOLLARS,  THEN.        499 

pistol,  being  fortunately  snatched  from  his  hands,  no  blood 
was  shed.  William  would  not  acknowledge  to  the  faculty 
that  he  had  been  wrong  in  drawing  his  pistol  with  the 
purpose  of  making  bloody  use  of  it,  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
insisted  that,  under  like  circumstances,  he  would  do  the 
same  again,  in  self-defence,  as  he  claimed.  The  faculty 
would  not  yield,  and  permitted  him,  in  conclusion,  to 
withdraw.  And  William  went  home,  a  somewhat  altered 
young  man,  but  beloved  by  all  the  villagers  about  him, 
some  of  whom,  however,  sometimes  said,  there  was  '  a  great 
deal  of  the  "  wild-horse  "  in  him  which  has  got  to  come  out 
in  some  way,  some  time  ; '  but  they  little  thought  what  lay 
in  the  line  of  William's  career." 

Having  thus  left  college,  the  question  arose,  what  Wil- 
liam should  do,  what  profession  or  business  he  should 
pursue  ?  First,  he  was  inclined  to  take  up  the  study  of 
the  law,  and  entered  the  office  of  Mr.  Mills,  the  only  law- 
yer of  the  village ;  but  Mr.  Mills  was  far  from  being  a 
profound  or  scholarly  man,  had  but  a  meagre  practice,  and, 
on  the  whole,  William,  who  had  read  over  Blackstone, 
Chitty's  Contracts,  and  some  other  works  whose  names  the 
old  man  had  forgot,  and  of  which  I  know  as  little,  came  to 
the  conclusion,  that  though  he  liked  to  read  law,  he  should 
not  like  to  practise  it,  and  that  course  was  abandpned ; 
and  William,  thinking  he  would  become  a  business  man, 
entered  the  old  man's  little  store.  After  a  while  he  was 
intrusted  to  go  to  the  city  and  make  the  little  periodical 
replenishing  purchases,  and  developed  great  taste  and 
sagacity  in  his  purchases.  In  fact,  he  had  rare  talents  as 
a  merchant,  and  it  was  not  long  before  a  place  was  found 
for  him  in  New  York,  with  a  then  ruling  firm,  where  he 
speedily  advanced,  so  as  to  be  offered  an  interest  in  the 
concern.  He  had  managed  to  lay  up  a  little  money  for 
himself,  but  the  old  gentleman  furnished  him  ten  thousand 
dollars  more,  —  a  large  sum,  it  was  then  thought, — 
the  villagers  thinking  that  the  old  gentleman  was  almost 
wild  to  part  with  that  sum,  which  would  then  have  bought 


500  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

two  or  three  good  farms  in  the  vicinity  of  the  village. 
Thus  provided,  William  went  into  the  partnership,  and  his 
business  went  on  flourishing  till,  at  the  end  of  five  years, 
he  became  the  second  member  in  importance  in  the  con- 
cern ;  and  though  not  married,  had  built  a  very  fine  sum- 
mer residence  in  the  outskirts  of  the  old  village,  and  filled 
and  surrounded  it  with  every  comfort. 

"  I  fear  William  Roberts  is  living  too  fast,"  some  old 
villager  would  say.  "  He'll  make  money  easy  and  spend 
it  as  easy.  Easy  comes,  easy  goes,  you  know." 

"  O,  no,  he  won't.  He  knows  the  value  of  money," 
another  would  say.  "  The  old  man's  taught  him  that.  He 
knows  how  to  hold  on  to  a  dollar." 

''  You  see,"  said  the  old  man,  with  a  curious  look  in  his 
eye,  as  he  related  what  he  used  to  hear  (and  sometimes 
overhear),  that  his  neighbors  said,  "  that  they  always 
thought  me,  up  there,  a  little  too  economical." 

But  William  Roberts  had  made  money  too  fast,  as  the 
sequel  showed;  he  lived  too  high,  contracted  expensive 
habits,  and,  eventually,  it  got  to  be  rumored  that  he  in- 
dulged sometimes  "  in  cards  for  fun ;  "  but  now  the  "  fun  " 
meant,  the  excitement  of  gambling  for  money.  His  busi- 
ness house  knew  nothing  of  this,  and  were  unsuspicious 
of  it  for  a  long  while,  though  William  made  large  drafts 
upon  it ;  but  these  not  being  more  than  he  was  entitled  to, 
nothing  was  said  about  it.  But  finally  he  insisted  on  draw- 
ing at  one  time  —  when  the  house  really  needed  the  money 
to  help  carry  on  its  business  —  the  sum  of  five  thousand 
dollars,  and  was  rather  curt  and  severe  upon  his  partners 
on  their  remonstrating ;  and  they  began  to  look  about  them, 
and  came  to  learn  of  Mr.  Roberts's  gambling  habits ;  and, 
fearful  of  him,  arranged,  after  a  long  while,  to  buy  him 
out,  accepting  his  figures  on  demand.  This  was  the  most 
fatal  hour  in  his  life. 

With  some  fifty  thousand  dollars,  cash  in  hand,  Mr. 
Roberts  could  not  control  himself,  and,  with  the  spirit  of 
gambling  upon  him,  rushed  deeper  into  dissipation  —  mor** 


WALL  STREET'S   MORAL  TEACHINGS.  501 

deeply  than  ever.  Together  with  his  gambling  pursuits 
at  night,  Mr.  Roberts  went  into  Wall  Street  by  day,  drawn 
there  by  the  allurements  of  certain  acquaintances,  who 
presented  to  him  visions  of  stupendous  wealth  to  be  early 
won.  Mr.  Roberts  was,  withal,  a  self-reliant  man,  and  be- 
lieved he  could  take  his  part  among  the  bold  and  fiery 
contestants  of  the  street ;  and  went  into  that  vortex,  where 
so  many  brave  souls  have  been  wrecked,  with  greatest 
confidence,  only  to  find  himself,  at  the  end  of  six  months, 
penniless  and  poor,  save  in  the  country  residence,  which 
has  been  before  alluded  to.  He  applied  to  his  adopted 
father  now  ;  told  him  the  whole  story ;  and  evidently  peni- 
tent over  his  wanderings  and  rashness,  was  again  aided 
into  business  in  a  comparatively  small  way.  But  his  tal- 
ents were  good,  and  for  a  while  he  pursued  a  line  of  suc- 
cess. But  the  old  gambling  mania  came  over  him  again, 
and  he  fell ;  and  this  time  deeper  than  before. 

In  his  extremity,  he  had  forged  certain  drafts  on  the 
bank  in  which  his  firm  did  business,  intending  to  keep  all 
dark,  and  make  these  good  in  time.  Though  they  were 
not  large,  he  found  he  could  not  meet  them  at  the  proper 
time  by  the  fitting  deposits  without  further  steps  in  crime. 
So  he  resorted  to  the  country  bank,  in  which  his  adopted 
father  kept  his  funds,  with  drafts  in  the  name  of  his  father, 
from  time  to  time,  which  were  borrowed  and  paid;  but 
these  caine  so  frequently  as  to  excite  the  suspicions  of  the 
president  of  the  bank,  that  Mr.  Roberts  was  getting  an 
undue  influence  over  my  client,  his  father ;  and  so  one  day 
meeting  the  old  gentleman  (whose  real  name  I  have  no 
right  to  disclose,  but  whom  we  will  call  Mr. '  Brown,  for 
convenience),  the  president  said,  — 

"  Mr.  Brown,  Mr.  Roberts  seems  to  have  occasion  to  use 
a  great  deal  of  money." 

"  Yes,  yes,"  replied  Mr.  Brown,  "  he  is  doing  a  fine,  large 
business  since  he's  got  on  his  feet  again,  after  his  '  failure ' ' 
(for  it  was  by  the  modest  word  '  failure '  that  Mr.  Brown 

20 


502  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

• 

always  referred  to  the  disastrous  career  of  Roberts  among 
his  country  friends). 

The  president,  believing  from  Mr.  Brown's  reply  that  all 
was  correct  with  Roberts,  since  he,  if  anybody,  must  know 
all  about  his  business,  he  thought,  said  no  more,  and  moved 
on.  However,  something  suggested  to  him,  when  Roberts 
came  to  present  the  next  check,  to  make  matters  more 
satisfactory  to  the  bank,  and  to  avoid  any  complaint  on  the 
part  of  Mr.  Brown,  against  whom  the  debit  side  of  his  ac- 
count was  getting  fearfully  large,  that  when  the  day  of 
settlement  should  come,  he,  Roberts,  should  obtain  Mr. 
Brown's  power  of  attorney  to  draw  when  and  in  what 
amounts  he  should.like. 

The  president,  on  future  reflection,  thought  Roberts  act- 
ed a  little  "  nervous  "  over  this  suggestion ;  but  Roberts's 
ready  acceptance  of  the  advice  caused  him  to  forget  it 
on  the  instant,  and  he  had  no  suspicion  whatever  that  Mr. 
Brown's  name  was  counterfeited  on  the  checks.  In  proper 
time  Roberts  appeared  with  a  power  of  attorney,  duly 
made,  and  purporting  to  be  Mr.  Brown's,  which  was  secure- 
ly lodged  in  the  bank. 

By  and  by  Mr.  Brown,  who  used  his  bank  mostly  as  one 
of  deposit,  being  then  retired  from  business,  and  having 
money  enough  for  his  current  wants  accruing  from  the 
rent  of  some  two  or  three  farms,  and  his  store-house,  and 
interest  on  money  lent  to  surrounding  farmers,  and  having 
no  business  occasion  to  often  visit  the  bank,  going  one 
time  to  the  shire  town  on  business,  thought  he  would  make 
a  friendly  call  at  the  bank  for  a  moment  on  his  friend  the 
president. 

On  his  calling,  the  usual  hand-shaking  and  salutations 
took  place,  and  were  followed  by  the  usual  gossip  about 
a  little  of  everything  and  nothing;  and  Mr.  Brown,  who 
had  been  invited  to  a  seat  in  the  directors'  room,  rose  to 
retire,  bidding  the  president  good  day.  As  he  was  passing 
out,  he  spoke  jocularly  to  the  president, — 

"  The  banks'  breaking,  I  suppose,  does  not  disturb  you? 


IN   CONFUSION.  503 

• 

Bank's  sound,  I  take  it.  You've  got  my  deposits  all  safe 
as  the  rest,  I  dare  say,  eh  ?  "  with  a  little  chuckle,  as  if  he 
thought  he  had  expended  a  little  salutary  wit. 

"  Yes,  perfectly  safe,  what  there's  left  of  'em.  Can't  tell 
yon  exactly,  without  looking,  how  the  account  stands ;  but 
some  balance  yet  to  your  credit." 

Brown  thought  the  president  was  joking,  laughed  a  little, 
and  went  out.  He  had  not  gone  lar  on  his  way,  however, 
when,  recalling  the  president's  manner  when  speaking,  he 
began  to  think  he  wasn't  joking.  But  Mr.  Brown  drove 
on  and  on.  At  last  he  got  to  be  uneasy,  and  determined 
to  go  back  to  ask  the  president  what  he  meant  by  that 
word  "balance."  The  president  was . surprised  by  the 
query,  and  answered, — 

"  Why,  I  mean  that  Roberts  has  not  yet  drawn  out  all 
your  funds  on  that  power  of  attorney." 

"  Power  of  attorney  ?     What  do  you  mean  ?  " 

The  president  was  confounded.  He  saw  that  old  Mr. 
Brown  was  either  forgetful,  or  that  there  was  some  wrong 
somewhere.  He  caused  the  cashier  to  look  up  Mr.  Brown's 
account,  and  draw  the  balance,  and  presented  the  same  to 
Mr.  Brown ;  who,  in  turn,  was  confounded,  said,  he  had 
given  Roberts  no  drafts,  or  any  power  of  attorney.  The 
latter  was  produced.  Mr.  Brown  could  not  believe  his  own 
eyes.  So  perfectly  like  his  own  signature  was  that  of  the 
power  of  attorney,  that  he  clasped  his  hand  to  his  head, 
and  after  deep  thought  for  a  few  moments,  said  to  the 
president, — 

"  Well,  I  would  not  believe  it.  It  seems  like  a  dream 
to  me.  I  cannot  remember  when  I  signed  that  power  of 
attorney ;  but  I  must  have  done  it  in  some  hour  of  weak- 
ness for  there's  John  Wentworth's  name  to  it  as  witness, 
and  I  know  his  handwriting  well.  He  has  borrowed  money 
of  me  often,  and  given  his  notes.  But,  see  here,  if  my 
name  is  forged,  so  may  John's  be.  I  don't  know  anything 
about  this  power  of  attorney." 

The  checks  drawn  before  the  power  of  attorney  was 


L)4  ^KNOTS   UNTIED. 

presented  by  Roberts  to  the  bank  were  new  to  Mr. 
Brown.  He  was  surprised  by  bis  exact  signature  to  these, 
and  the  filling  out  of  some  of  them  as  well,  in  his  own 
handwriting  apparently.  But  sure  he  could  not  remem- 
ber ever  giving  one  of  them. 

"  Do  you  think,"  said  the  bank  president,  who  under- 
stood the  situation  of  things  if  these  should  all  prove 
forgeries,  and  wishing  to  save  the  bank  from  loss,  — "  do 
you  think  sometimes,  Mr.  Brown,  that  your  memory  fails 
you  at  all  as  you  grow  older?" 

"  O,  yes,"  said  the  honest  old  man,  "  I  do.  I  find  I 
forget  a  good  many  things.  Well,  well ;  have  I  come  to 
this?" 

What  occurred  thereafter,  would  be  wearisome  to  recite 
in  detail.  Suffice  it  that  search  was  made  for  Wentworth, 
the  witness,  by  both  Mr.  Brown  and  the  bank ;  but  he  was 
not  to  be  found  immediately.  His  signature  was  shown  to 
several  persons  who  knew  his  handwriting,  and  all  declared 
it  his.  Roberts,  in  some  way,  got  wind  of  the  old  man's 
having  visited  the  bank,  and  he,  too,  was  not  to  be  found, 
and  so  matters  stood  for  a  while. 

At  last  it  was  found  out  that  Wentworth,  who  had  a 
pretty  good  farm,  which  he  worked  only  a  part  of  the  year, 
and  occupied  himself  as  a  pedler,  with  a  wagon,  through 
quite  a  large  circuit  of  country  the  rest  of  the  time,  had 
been  taken  to  the  Insane  Retreat,  at  Hartford,  Conn.  His 
"  team  "  having  been  run  into  and  capsized  one  night  on  tRe 
road  by  another  "  team  "  furiously  driven  by  some  drunk- 
en men,  Wentworth  being  violently  thrown  against  a 
large  rock,  head  foremost,  and  receiving  such  injuries  as 
quite  severely  damaged  his  mind.  He,  therefore,  could 
not  be  "  improved  "  to  determine  whether  his  signature 
was  veritable  or  not. 

Mr.  Brown  had,  meanwhile,  persuaded  himself  that  tho 
"  power  of  attorney  "  was  a  forgery ;  that  he  had  not  suf- 
fered any  such  mental  weakness  at  any  time  as  would 
have  allowed  him  to  give  such  an  instrument  to  Roberts. 


A  PERPLEXITY  OF  HONESTY.         50£ 

In  fact,  he  knew  that  it  was  a  forgery.  Great  though 
his  grief  was  over  the  heartless  conduct  of  Roberts,  Mr. 
Brown  could  .not  make  up  his  mind  to  tell  his  wife  the 
facts.  She  noticed  his  sorrow,  which  he,  upon  her  fre; 
quent  inquiry,  attributed  to  bodily  ills,  and  time  went  on. 
Eventually  Mr.  Brown  made  up  his  mind  that  perhaps  ho 
ought  to  be  willing  to  bear  a  part  of  the  loss ;  and  after 
consulting  his  lawyer  about  it,  went  to  the  bank,  and  gen 
erously  offered  to  compromise ;  to  lose  half  his  deposit,  if 
the  bank  would  pay  him  the  other  half,  or  sixteen  thou- 
sand five  hundred  dollars.  But  the  directors  seeing  the 
advantage  they  had  o/  him,  refused  to  entertain  his  offer 
for  a  moment,  affecting  to  believe  the  drafts  and  power  of 
attorney  genuine. 

At  last  Mr.  Brown  broke  the  matter  to  his  wife.  She 
was  struck  with  horror ;  but  in  the  end  counselled  him  to 
let  it  all  go,  inasmuch  as  they  had  enough  left  to  "  scrub 
along  on  the  rest  of  their  lives,"  as  she  expressed  it,  with 
economy.  But  the  manner  of  his  old  friend,  the  president, 
when  announcing  to  him  the  course  taken  by  the  direc- 
tors, had  greatly  piqued  Mr.  Brown,  and  he  was  deter- 
mined to  have  all  his  money  at  last.  The  great  legal  diffi- 
culties in  the  way  were,  however,  insurmountable  in  the 
opinion  of  his  attorney,  who  had  exhausted  his  own  re- 
sources in  trying  to  get  the  proper  testimony  to  set  aside 
the  power  of  attorney,  and  finally  Mr.  Brown  had  applied 
to  me. 

I  had  heard  his  long  story  with  greatest  patience,  seeing 
nothing  tangible  up  to  this  point  to  take  hold  of.  Went- 
worth  might  not  recover  in  years,  if  ever ;  Roberta  was 
out  of  the  way,  and  would,  perhaps,  never  be  found.  All 
his  neighbors  would  identify  Mr.  Brown's  signatures  as 
veritable,  and  he  himself  had  admitted  to  the  bank  presi- 
dent, on  the  day  of  the  disclosure  of  his  claimed  indebted- 
ness, that  he  found  himself  frequently  forgetful ;  and  had 
half  admitted  that  he  might  have  been  led  to  sign  the 
power  of  attorney  in  some  hour  of  weakness.  The  case 


506  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

was  desperate.  I  pondered  it  over  a  while,  and  finally 
asked  Mr.  Brown  if  he  could  give  me  the  date  of  the  power 
of  attorney.  He  could  not.  I  asked  him  then  to  go  to  tho 
bank  with  some  friend,  and  ask  to  see  it,  and  note  the  date  ; 
telliifg  him  that  this  was  the  first  essential  thing  for  me  to 
know.  Before  Mr.  B.  left  my  office,  I  had  planned  a  course 
of  operations,  all  of  which  I  did  not  develop  to  him,  how- 
ever. In  the  course  of  a  few  days  Mr.  Brown  sent  me 
a  letter,  saying  that  the  date  of  the  instrument  was  the 
26th  of  June,  185-.  I  turned  to  my  diary  for  that  year, 
and  found  where  I  was  on  that  day, —  at  Coney  Island,  with 
quite  a  largo  party,  who  went  do*vn  on  the  excursion 
steamer  Belle,  early  in  the  day,  and  were  gone  all  day  ; 
and,  as  I  knew  Roberts  very  well  by  sight,  I  was  sure 
that  I  remembered  his  being  there  that  day.  Light  began 
to  gather  in  my  mind.  Perhaps  Mr.  Brown,  too,  could  re- 
member where  he  was  that  day ;  and  I  sent  for  him,  told 
him  what  I  wanted  to  know ;  and  he  was  sure,  on  reflection 
(as  was  afterwards  found  certain),  that  he  was  visiting, 
during  a  week  which  covered  the  26th  of  June,  with  his 
wife,  some  old  friends  at  Danbury  ^Connecticut.  So  much 
being  learned,  I  lost;  no  time  in  hunting  up  parties  who 
were  at  Coney  Island  that  day,  and  established  the  fact, 
beyond  doubt,  that  Roberts  was  there. 

Next  I  turned  my  attention  to  Wentworth's  case,  and 
found  that  he  was  at  Philadelphia  that  day,  and  the  day  be- 
fore, making  some  purchases ;  and  also  found  a  letter  from 
him  to  a  brother,  dated  at  Pittsburgh,  Pa.,  on  the  29th  of 
June,  in  which  we  found  a  statement  to  the  effect  that  he 
had  left  homo  on  the  24th  of  June;  had  been  in  Philadelphia 
for  a  day  or  two ;  had  gone  from  there  to  Pittsburgh,  and 
should  be  "  back  about  the  4th  of  July."  We  also  found 
a  man  who  had  come  on  from  Pittsburgh  to  New  York 
with  Wcntworth  on  the  3d  of  July,  and  who  had  met  him 
there  several  times  a  day,  anil  foE  several  days  before. 
Armed  with  these  facts,  we  went  to  the  bank,  and  presented 


A  LEGAL  DIFFERENCE  IN  COLORS.  507 

our  evidence  frankly,  and  were  surprised  at  the  officers' 
then  refusing  to  pay  over  the  money. 

Suit  was  brought  by  Mr.  Brown  for  the  recovery  of  his 
money,  and  the  bank  undertook  to  keep  it  in  court,  think- 
ing to  weary  out  old  Mr.  Brown,  and  effect  a  compromise, 
perhaps. 

But  the  old  man  grew  more  vigorous  and  confident  as 
court  after  court  sat,  and  the  case  was  put  over  upon 
one  pretence  or  another.  But  this,  after  all,  was  no  dis- 
paragement to  Mr.  Brown's  cause,  for,  before  he  could 
force  the  suit  on  to  trial,  Wentworth  recovered  his  mind 
and  health  ;  and  being  apprised  of  what  was  going  on, 
declared  that  he  had  not  seen  Roberts  for  several  months 
before  the  26th  of  June,  and  had  not  seen  him  since  ;  and 
knew  that  he  had  never  witnessed  such  an  instrument  for 
Mr.  Brown.  Wentworth  also  kept  an  accurate  business 
diary,  which  covered  all  the  time,  and  corroborated  the 
testimony  that  we  had  secured  of  his  being  on  that  day, 
and  before  and  after,  in  Pittsburgh,  etc.  Wentworth  ac- 
companied Mr.  Brown  and  his  attorney  to  the  bank  to  see 
the  power  of  attorney,  and  they  were  informed  that  it 
was  at  their  attorney's ;  but  the  officers  would  give  no 
order  that  he  might  see  it.  But  Mr.  Brown's  attorney, 
conceiving  that  the  bank's  attorney  would  not  refuse  him 
a  professional  courtesy,  took  Mr.  Brown  and  Wentworth 
to  his  brother  lawyer's  office,  and  they  were  at  once  shown 
the  document.  Looking  at  it  for  a  moment  in  astonish- 
ment, Wentworth  exclaimed, — 

"  No ;  that  signature  is  not  mine.  The  '  e  '  in  the  name 
ain't  just  as  I  make  it;  besides,  I  haven't  signed  my  name, 
or  written  a  letter,  or  made  an  entry  in  black  ink,  in 
many  years  (the  signature  was  in  black).  I  always  use 
blue." 

"But,"  interposed  the  bank's  attorney,  " you  may  not 
have  had  blue  ink  at  hand  when  you  witnessed  that  in- 
strument." 

"  I  tell  you,"  said  Wentworth,  in  a  manner  which  could 


608  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

not  be  mistaken  for  its  firm  honesty,  "  I  never  witnessed 
that  instrument.  I  never  can  use  anybody's  else  pen, 
and  I  always  go  prepared,"  said  he,  taking  out  from  his 
side  coat  pocket  an  old,  long,  portable  inkstand,  with  t 
pen  held  in  its  leathern  case.  4<  There,  I've  carried  that, 
now,  for  over  eight  years,  and  I  have  never  written  a 
word  from  any  other  inkstand,  with  any  other  pen  but  my 
own,  or  any  kind  of  ink  but  blue,  in  all  that  time." 

His  manner  convinced  the  lawyer  of  the  bank  that  it 
was  of  no  use  to  go  to  trial  with  such  testimony  against  the 
bank,  and  he  very  frankly  said  so ;  and  that  he  should 
advise  immediate  settlement,  which  he  did ;  and  old  Mr. 
Brown  recovered  his  whole  desposit,  with  interest  from 
the  time-  he  brought  suit,  and  with  sundry  "  costs." 

But  both  he  and  Mrs.  Brown  declared  that  they  felt  no 
better  after  the  recovery  of  the  money,  for,  after  the 
struggle  to  obtain  it  was  passed,  and  the  excitement  was 
over,  the  heartless  conduct  of  Roberts  seemed  to  oppress 
them  only  the  more,  and  Mr.  Brown,  after  a  year  or  two, 
pined  away  and  died.  Mrs.  Brown  is  still  living  at  this 
writing,  an  unhappy  woman,  when  I  last  saw  her. 

As  for  Roberts,  it  is  believed  that  ho  is  leading  a  miser- 
able life  in  the  mining  districts  of  California,  under  the 
name  of  William  Simpson ;  but  this  is  a  conjecture,  founded 
on  testimony  hardly  sufficient  to  be  relied  on. 

Thus  were  wrecked  Roberts's  bright  hopes,  and  the  hap- 
piness of  his  faithful  old  adopted  parents.  Playing  cards 
"  for  fun,"  at  first,  not  unfrequently  leads  to  disastrous, 
deplorable,  ends  —  to  unalterable  wretchedness. 


OLD  MR.  ALVORD'S  LAST  AVILL. 


THE  DESTRUCTIVE  GREEJ>  OF  GAIN  —  A  WEIRD,  WONDROUS  TALE  —  "  WHA/T 
IF  THEY  BUT  KNEW  " TELLING  STORIES  AWAY  FROM  HOME REVE- 
LATIONS  AN  OLD  MAN  OF  THE  HIGH  MORAL  TYPE CURIOUS  NOTION 

ABOUT  THE  SIZE  OF  A  FAMILY  —  THE  MYSTIC  NUMBER  THREE  —  POR- 
TRAITS OF  A  FAMILY;  A  PERFECT  WOMAN  —  DEATHS  AND  INTRIGUES  — 
A  "FAITHFUL  SERVANT"  —  OLD  WILLS  AND  NEW  —  LEGAL  COMPLICA- 
TIONS—  THE  LAST  WILL  MISSING  —  A  CRAFTY  LAWYER  —  A  THOROUGH 
SEARCH  —  A  DIABOLICAL  COURTSHIP,  AND  FIERCE  STRUGGLE  DURING 

THREE    YEARS  —  A    DETECTIVE    AT    LAST    CALLED    INTO    THE    MATTER A 

PLOT    LAID    TO   FOIL    OLD   BOYD,    AN    UNSCRUPULOUS    LAWYER  —  DID    IT 

SUCCEED? T.HE    READER    PERMITED    TO    ANSWER   THE    QUESTION    FOR 

HIMSELF  —  A      VITAL     DISCOVERY  —  MORE      PLOTTING  A      BEAUTIFUL 

YOUNG    LAD.Y     MAKES    A    DIVERSION    IN    THE    PLANS OLD    ANDREW  WIL- 

COX'S  FUNNY  LETTERS  SEARCHED,  AND  A  TREASURE  "FOUND"  AMONG 
THEM  — OLD  BOYD'S  CONSTERNATION — THE  LAST  WILL  FINALLY  CAR- 
RIED OUT  —  "  NOTHING  IMPOSSIBLE  "  —  A  FORTUNE  TOO  LARGE  TO  BE 
LAUGHED  AT  —  A  CUNNING  WIFE  LEADS  HER  SIMPLE  HUSBAND  A  CURIOUS 
LIFE  —  A  BIT  OF  COMFORT,  PERHAPS. 

THAT  "  the  love  of  money  is  the  root  of  all  evil,"  hardly 
needed  for  its  proper  declaration  a  divine  voice.  The 
records  of  man's  life  and  struggles  in  all  ages,  in  peace 
and  in  war,  through  the  fictitious  "  honesties  "  of  business 
enterprises,  or  in  the  eccentric  ways  called  crimes,  declare 
most  emphatically  that  the  "  great  good  "  is  "  goods  "  or 
their  equivalent  in  the  "  representatives  of  value  "  which 
we  call  money,  in  almost  everybody's  heart;  and  the  sick- 
ening details  of  the  struggles  for  it,  with  which  the  de- 
tective becomes  familiar,  are  so  multiplied,  that  one  might 
almost  write  the  history  of  current  times,  as  well  as  of 
that  of  the  past,  in  one  phrase  —  "Money-getting!"  "  money- 
getting  !  "  And  the  modes  by  which  money  is  sought  are 
ulmost  as  multiplied  as  the  persons  seeking. 

30  20  *        *» 


510  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

The  fierce  quarrels  between  members  of  the  same  fam- 
ily,—  an  instance  of  which  I  have  marked  in  my  memo- 
randum, to  be  presented  in  these  pages  if  space  permits,  — 
and  the  devilish  "  greed  of  gain  "  which  pursues  a  father, 
perhaps  on  his  dying  bed,  and  disturbs  his  last  hour 
through  the  contentions  of  his  loving  children,  quarrelling 
there,  may  be,  with  a  step-mother,  or  somebody  else  equally 
"  loved  "  by  them,  over  the  "  goods  and  chattels"  which  the 
expiring  man  is  expected  to  leave  behind,  have  furnished 
matter  for  the  satirist  in  all  times ;  and  most  fit  subjects 
Are  these  for  the  satirist's  and  reformer's  pen.  They  can- 
not be  held  up  to  too  great  execration. 

The  story  which  I  am  about  to  relate  might,  in  its  inter- 
esting details  and  phases,  be  readily  made  to  fill  a  duo- 
decimo volume  of  several  hundred  pages  instead  of  the 
short  article  into  which  it  is  compressed,  so  peculiar  were 
the  characters,  and  so  beautiful  as  well  as  painful  the 
varied  life  of  the  chief  person  whom  it  regards.  I  find 
myself  lingering  over  it,  as  now  I  turn  over  my  diary  and 
note-books,  and  recall  it  so  vividly  to  mind,  with  the  wish 
that  I  might,  and  with  a  half-formed  resolve  that  I  will  at 
some  time,  put  it  in  the  form  of  an  extended  narrative,  so 
thorough  a  portrayal  of  human  nature  in  some  of  its  best 
as  well  as  "worst  aspects,  would  it  prove. 

I  am  frequently  vexed  that  I  may  not  use  the  actual 
names  of  the  individuals  who  figure  in  these  tales.  How 
many  a  neighborhood,  or  how  large  an  acquaintanceship 
with  this  or  that  character  would  be  astonished,  if  they  but 
knew  as  they  read  that  the  subjects  of  this  or  some  other 
articles  are  still  beings  lingering  in  the  flesh,  and  residing, 
perhaps,  next  door ! 

I  was  telling  a  story  one  night  in  a  stage-coach  which 
-was  full  of  passengers.  I  was  more  than  two  hundred 
miles  away  from  my  own  home,  and  over  eight  hundred 
from  the  place  of  the  chief  scene  in  my  story.  The  pas- 
sengers had,  most  of  them,  been  favoring  each  other  with 
•"yarns/'  of  more  or  less  truthfulness,  but  usually  untrue, 


"CANT  BE   TOO   CAUTIOUS."  511 

in  some  respects,  to  the  actual  experiences  of  life,  and  my 
turn  came  then.  J  chanced  to  call  to  mind  an  experience 
of  mine  more  than  ten  years  before.  My  story,  1  fancy, 
was  of  a  more  interesting  kind  than  rny  fellow-travellers 
were  wont  to  hear,  for  there  was  the  profoundest  silence 
on  their  part.  As  now  and  then  the  clouds  which  threat- 
ened a  rain  broke  away,  and  revealed  the  moon,  I  noticed 
that  an  old  man,  sitting  opposite  me  on  the  back  seat,  was 
all  cars,  all  intent. 

To  make  my  story  comprehensible  in  some  parts,  I  had, 
in  the  early  portion  of  it,  entered  into  a  minute  personal, 
rather,  physical  description  of  the  chief  character  of  it,  and 
a  bad  one.  It  proved  that  the  old  gentleman  recognized 
the  very  man,  though  he  himself,  when  at  home,  lived 
some  fifty  miles  from  him,  and  it  further  proved  that  what 
that  tale  revealed  led  on  to  a  course  of  affairs  in  which 
several  families  were  more  or  less  involved,  to  their  dis- 
pleasure. 

When  we  alighted,  the  old  man  took  me  aside,  and  whis- 
pered in  my  ear,  "  That  was  a  fearful  story  you  told  us, 
but  I  knew  it  was  all  true,  because  I  know  the  man  that 

you  called  '  Jones.'  His  name  is ,  and  he  resides  in 

,  and  I  am  greatly  obliged  to  you  for  unearthing  one 

of  his  villanies.  I  can  see  now  how  he  has  accomplished 
others  just  as  bad." 

I  tried  to  laugh  the  old  man  out  of  his  notion,  but  he 

said  it  was  of  no  use,  that  he  knew  Mr. only  too  well. 

I  have  ever  since  observed  a  greater  care  in  my  general 
descriptions,  and  nevet  forget  that  distance  of  space  or 
time  may  be  no  surety  of  secrecy. 

In  the  town  of ,  in  the  State  of  New  York,  for  fifty 

years  before  the  time  I  was  called  to  take  part  in  the  affair 
which  is  the  chief  part  of  the  subject-matter  of  this,  there 
had  lived  a  quaint  old  man  of  wealth,  whom  his  neighbors 
but  little  understood.  He  had  had,  in  the  course  of  his 
life,  three  wives,  two  of  whom  had  borne  him  children,  none 
of  which  lived  but  a  few  years,  and  the  third  had  died 


512  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

childless.  But  the  old  man,  in  his  grief  over  the  want  of 
"  natural  heirs  of  his  own  body,"  had  adopted  several  chil- 
dren, one  after  the  other,  whenever  he  lost  one  of  his,  "  to 
keep  the  number  good,"  as  he  said.  The  old  gentleman, 
whom  we  will  call  James  Alvord,  was  born  in  Vermont, 
reared  in  the  strictest  Puritan  ways,  and  was  bred  to  work. 
At  about  sixteen  years  of  age,  I  believe,  he  was  appren- 
ticed to  learn  the  harness-maker's  trade,  from  which  time 
lie  left  off  going  to  school ;  but  he  was  of  studious  dispo- 
sition, and  I  was  told  (for  1  never  saw  him  myself)  that  he 
had  aggregated  to  himself  a  large  amount  of  information 
upon  almost  all  subjects,  and  that  had  he  been  an  aspirant 
for  public  honors  and  distinctions,  his  fund  of  knowledge 
would  have  enabled  him  to  cope  successfully  with  almost 
tiny  man  in  the  State.  But  he  had  no  vain  aspirations. 
To  accumulate  knowledge  and  money  was  his  chief  desire, 
not  to  make  display  with  either,  but  simply  to  enjoy  the 
consciousness  of  having,  —  possessing,  it  would  seem. 

Tlie  old  man  had  not  far  wandered  from  the  moral  no- 
tions and  feelings  which  were  inculcated  or  aroused  in 
him  by  his  Vermont  education,  but  he  entertained  some 
peculiar  notions  of  his  own.  In  fact,  he  was  all  his  own  — 
all  character,  all  strong  individuality  in  everything. 

Among  his  notions  —  perhaps  I  should  call  them  his 
fixed  opinions  —  was,  that  it  was  every  married  couples' 
duty,  if  possible,  to  bring  into  the  world  six  children,  and 
if  they  could  not  have  them  themselves,  to  adopt  as  many 
from  families  that  had  more  ;  for  in  his  early  days,  when 
he  first  imbibed  this  notion,  it  was  «o  rare  thing  for  fam- 
ilies in  Vermont  to  count  around  the  hearthstone  ten'  and 
twelve  children  apiece.  Six  is  the  product  of  two  mul- 
tiplied by  three.  Three,  of  course,  comprehends  a  "  trin- 
ity/' and  upon  the  mystic  trinity,  so  frequently  discovered 
iu  Nature,  tho  old  man  built  many  theories.  Three  \va-  ;t 
mystic  number  with  him. 

"  There  are  but  three  primitive  colors,"  he  used  to  say. 
"  All  other  colors  are  the  results  of  the  intermixture  of 


CURIOUS  ALTERNATIONS.  513 

two  or  all  of  these,"  and  so  on,  the  old  gentleman  was  ac- 
customed to  elucidate  his  "  philosophy  ;  "  and  somehow  he 
had  so  applied  the  mystic  three  to  the  matter  of  parentage, 
that  he  had  arrived  at  the  doctrine  noticed  above,  and  he 
was  a  man  who  most  strictly  observed  himself  what  he 
was  pleased  to  teach  others  as  a  duty ;  and  so,  from  time 
to  time,  in  the  lack  of  children  who  continued  to  live,  he 
adopted  others.  He  did  not  seem,  however,  in  his  "  adop- 
tions "  to  have  observed  much  "  philosophy "  (the  word 
that  was  most  often  upon  his  tongue,  and  which,  in  fact, 
did  signify  not  a  little  of  the  character  it  intimates,  in  his 
brain)  in  selecting  the  children. 

He  overlooked  the  matter  of  stock  and  blood,  and  seemed 
only  anxious  to  make  sure  of  healthy  children ;  which  is 
not  so  much  to  be  wondered  at  in  his  case,  perhaps.  So 
that  when  these  six  grew  up  to  maturity  they  developed 
characters  about  as  diverse  as  could  possibly  be  found, 
notwithstanding  the  course  of  their  education,  or  rather 
teachings  (mental  and  moral)  had  been  about  the  same. 

Some  of  them  gave  the  old  man  much  uneasiness  ;  and 
notwithstanding  that  he  had  placed  each  in  business  when 
he  had  arrived  at  age,  or  had  given  the  girls  each  of  them 
a  good,  outfit  on  her  marriage,  yet  some  of  them  were  dis- 
contented, and  thought  the  old  man  ought  to  have  the 
grace  to  die  in  good  season,  in  order  that  they  might  ob- 
tain their  expected  shares  of  propert}7 ;  for  it  was  presumed 
by  them  that  Mr.  Alvord  .would  treat  them  all  alike,  and 
leave  no  will  in  fact.  I  should  not  forget  to  say  here,  that 
there  were  of  these  children  three  males  and  three  females. 
Mr.  Alvord  had  first  adopted  a  boy,  next  a  girl,  and  so  on, 
alternating. 

Time  went  on,  and  the  three  boys  had  grown  to  man- 
hood, and  married,  and  two  of  the  girls  had  filled  out  into 
mature  womanhood  in  good  time,  and  had  married.  Mr. 
Alvord,  as  I  have  said  before,  had  been  generous  to  them 
all,  and  impartial  in  the  bestowal  of  his  pecuniary  favors; 
but  it  would  have  been  impossible,  under  the  circumstances_, 


514  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

to  have  been  equally  respectful  of  them  all  in  his  heart, 
BO  diverse  were  they  in  character.  The  oldest  boy  grew 
up  to  be  a  very  respectful,  but  sluggish  and  somewhat 
stupid  man. 

The  second  one  became  a  tricky,  crafty  fellow,  full  of 
cunning  wiles,  and  was  what  the  world  calls  a  "  smart 
man" — ignorant  of  everything  but  business,  and  more 
willing  to  succeed  at  that  through  scheming  and  dishonor, 
able  practices  (safely  dishonorable,  I  mean,  for  h'e  was  too 
"  smart "  to  do  anything  in  which  he  was  likely  to  be 
trapped ;  but  dishonorable,  still,  in  the  strict  interpreta- 
tion of  that  word ;  only  dishonorable  so  far  as  the  laws  of 
business  would  allow  him  to  be  —  which  is  latitude  enough 
for  most  wickedly-inclined  men).  He  left  the  farm,  for 
which  Mr.  Alvord  tried  to  induce  him  to  cultivate  a  love, 
and  had  gone  into  merchandizing  on  a  moderate  scale,  a 
year  or  two  after  his  marriage,  and  it  was  said  at  once  of 
him  that  he  could  drive  "  as  sharp  a  bargain  as  the  best 
of  them  ; "  a  phrase  in  which  "  worst "  is  substituted  for 
"  best  "  in  the  experienced  hearer's  mind. 

His  name  was  a  peculiar  one  — "  Floramond  ;  "  a  name 
which  his  mother  had  selected  from  an  old  novel,  which 
she  read  while  bearing  him,  and  which  she  made  Mr. 
Alvord  agree  to  not  change  when  he  adopted  him.  "Flor" 
was  his  nickname,  which  he  always  bore  in  manhood  as 
well  as  in  childhood,  and  it  became  a  name  in  his  neigh- 
borhood at  last,  which  was  a  synonym  of  craft  and  busi- 
ness meanness.  "  That's  Flor  all  over,"  was  said  when 
anybody,  no  matter  who,  was  found  guilty  of  some  extor- 
tion, or  cheating,  or  grasping  meanness. 

While  Mr.  Alvord  lived,  Floramond  took  better  care  of 
his  reputation  than  afterwards.  He  was  ever  very  atten- 
tive to  Mr.  Alvord,  and  never  lost  an  opportunity  of  de- 
monstrating to  him  his  industry  and  attention  to  business, 
which  were,  indeed,  very  pleasing  to  Mr.  Alvord,  who, 
though  he  sometimes  wished  Floramond  could  not  be  quite 
so  sharp  and  grasping,  nevertheless  knew  the  world  well 


PSYCHOMETRIC   DISTINCTIONS.  515 

enough  to  know  that  most  other  men  in  business  were  like 
him  to  the  dkterit  of  their  ability ;  and  so  soothed  himself 
into  the  belief  that  Floramond  was  "  as  good  as  they'll  av- 
erage." Besides,  Floramond  was  a  bit  of  a  wag, —  could 
tell  a  story  well,  made  a  good  many  hits  at  people,  which 
pleased  the  majority,  —  and,  withal,  was  a  member  of  the 
Congregational  church  in  his  place  of  residence,  and  "in 
good  and  regular  standing." 

Mr.  Alvord  did  not  care  for  this  last  fact  much.  He  was 
not  a  church-member,  and  lived  and  died  a  very  good  old 
man,  without  the  church.  But  he  reflected  that  the  church- 
membership  did  not  hurt  Floramond  in  the  people's  eyes, 
even  if  it  did  him  no  especial  good ;  and  I  suspect  it  oper- 
ated to  blind  the  old  gentleman's  eyes  a  little  to  Flora- 
mond's  real  character. 

The  third  son  took  a  literary  turn,  after  he  had  made 
considerable  progress  in  some  mechanical  pursuit,  —  I 
forget  what, —  and  was  sent  to  college,  and  at  last  gradu- 
ated as  a  minister  of  the  Dutch  Reform  order,  I  believe. 
He  had  no  business  capacity,  and  on  a  fair  salary  could 
never  exactly  make  ends  meet  from  year  to  year,  and 
was  considerable  of  a  pensioner  on  the  old  gentleman's 
bounty. 

The  girls  married  pretty  well,  all  of  them.  Of  these, 
one  was  a  shrewd  witch,  almost  as  keen  as  Floramond. 
Her  name  was  Eliza,  but  she  always  bore  the  nickname 
''  Lise,"  which  would  not  always  have  been  mal  apropos 
if  it  had  been  spelled  "  Lies ;  "  for  she  had  great  skill  in 
dissimulation  and  its  kindred  arts,  even  to  the  matter  of 
pilfering,  so  the  neighbors  generally  believed.  But  she 
had  wit,  and  was  quite  handsome  withal,  and  got  a  good, 
thorough-going  business  man  for  a  husband.  The  second 
"  daughter "  in  order  proved  a  very  nice,  good-hearted 
woman,  with  moderate  abilities,  and  the  kindest  of  disposi- 
tions ;  and  she,  too,  married  a  very  worthy  man. 

The  third  "  daughter  "  was  one  of  those  curious,  unde- 
finable  creatures,  perfect  in  almost  every  respect,  and 


516  KNOTS    UNTIED. 

gifted  in  several  directions.  Mr.  Alvord  had  adopted  her 
in  her  tenth  year,  and  had  selected  her  in  preference  to 
any  of  several  other  children  whose  parents  were  anxious 
to  "  get  the  old  man  to  'dopt  the  gals,"  because  she  A\ •  i- 
so  robust,  so  stoutly  formed,  and  withal  •BO  hardy  and 
agile.  He  thought  she  would  surely  make  a  large,  queenly 
woman.  But  she  changed  greatly  as  she  approached  the 
age  of  puberty,  —  shot  up  into  a  tall,  wiry,  lithe  form, 
and  her  rounded  face  lengthened  to  a  peculiarly  spiritual 
shape,  developing  intellect,  in  short, — whereas  she  indicat- 
ed, at  ten  years  of  age,  only  strength  and  solidity  —  as  her 
chief  characteristics  in  womanhood.  She  was  a  brilliant 
scholar  at  the  "  high  school,"  and  not  only  that,  very  viva- 
cious, and  withal  just  as  gentle  in  heart  as  she  was  almost 
rudely  playful,  when  play  was  the  real  work  to  be  done  — 
lor  she  did  everything  earnestly ;  and  there  was  a  peculiar 
earnestness  in  her  very  gentleness.  It  was  a  positive  gen- 
tleness, a  gentleness  springing  out  of  high  principles,  and 
not  merely  a  passive  inertness.  Her  name  was  Margaret, 
and  she  made  the  name  beloved  by  all  who  knew  her.  She 
married  a  splendid  man ;  but  he  died  in  four  or  five  years 
after  their  marriage,  and  left  her  with  two  beautiful  chil- 
dren, who  inherited  much  of  his  good  qualities  —  more 
physical  beauty  than  their  mother  bore,  with  not  a  little  of 
her  great  goodness ;  and  it  was  thought  he  had  left  her 
"comfortably  off,"  too;  but  somehow  his  partner  in  business 
managed  to  bhow  that  the  firm  was  considerably  involved, 
and  she  got  but  a  small  estate  after  all.  Shrewd  people 
suspected  that  her  husband's  partner  knew  how  to  "  turn 
an  honest  penny  "  in  a  business  way ;  especially  when, 
three  years  after  the  husband's  death,  the  partner  built  a 
very  costly  house,  and  added  another  horse  to  his  old  team, 
BO  that  he  drove  a  "  spanking  pair,"  before  a  carriage 
which  was  considered  a  "  leetle  "  too  expensive  in  that 
quarter  of  the  world.  But,  however,  'twas  no  matter;  she 
was  poor,  a'nd  old  Mr.  Alvord  insisted  that  she  should 


FAITHFUL   IN   DEATH.  517 

return  to  his  home,  with  her  children,  and  take  charge  of 
it  for  him. 

These  things  I  was  told  at  the  time  of  my  becoming  ac- 
quainted with  the  remaining  family,  long  after  Mr.  Alvord's 
death.  With  him  Margaret  staid,  a  faithful,  good  woman, 
charitable  to  everybody,  and  beloved  by  all ;  by  the  poor, 
especially,  who  came  to  Mr.  Alvord's  house  for  aid,  where 
they  were  sure  to  go  first,  before  going  anywhere  else. 
With'none  of  his  children  except  Margaret,  was  Mr.  Alvord 
on  so  intimate  terms  as  with  Floramond.  They  all  lived 
some  miles  from  him ;  but  Floramond  managed  to  see 
the  old  man  often,  and  not  unfrequently  took  him  to  his 
own  home,  and  kept  him  there  for  a  week  or  two  weeks 
at  a  time,  especially  when  he  could  take  one  of  Marga- 
ret's children  along  with  him  ;  for  the  old  man,  though  he 
had  several  grandchildren,  did  not  seem  to  be  very  fond  of 
any  except  Margaret's  son  and  daughter. 

Margaret  continued  to  take  charge  of  the  house,  and 
watched  over  old  Mr.  Alvord,  like  a  dutiful  loving  daugh- 
ter as  she  was ;  and  the  old  man  and  his  wife  grew  every 
year  more  and  more  fond  of  her.  The  wife  being,  in  the 
latter  years  of  her  life,  mostly  an  invalid,  was  very  grateful 
for  the  tender  care  of  Margaret,  and  when  she  came  to  die 
entreated  Mr.  Alvord  that  he  should  make  his  will,  and 
make  it  particularly  favorable  to  Margaret,  whom  she  loved 
best  of  all,  and  who,  being  a  widow  with  children,  needed 
more  than  the  rest.  Mr.  Alvord,  of  course,  promised  to  do 
BO,  out  of  affection  for  both  wife  and  daughter,  and  the  old 
lady  died  blessing  him ;  and  though  she  had  long  been 
expected  by  her  friends  to  die  any  day,  suddenly,  so  sud- 
denly did  she  die  that  only  Mr.  Alvord  and  Margaret  were 
with  her.  There  was  no  time  to  send  for  a  neighbor,  after 
she  swooned  away,  one  day,  in  her  chair,  before  she  was 
dead —  reviving  from  the  swoon  but  for  a  moment,  before 
she  took  her  last  breath ;  in  which  moment,  grasping 
the  hands  of  Margaret  and  Mr.  Alvord  in  her  own,  she 
blessed  them  both,  and  reminded  Mr.  Alvord  of  the  will. 


518  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

After  her  death,  Floramond  increased  his  attentions  to 
Mr.  Alvord  ;  and  finally,  his  own  wife  dying,  he,  a  few 
months  after  her  death,  became  more  than  usually  inter- 
ested in  Margaret,  and  was  found  at  Mr.  Alvord's  so  often, 
that  everybody  was  talking  of  his  wonderful  devotion  to  the 
old  man.  It  is  true  that  some  people  said  he  was  "  after 
the  biggest  slice  in  the  old  man's  will,"  and  hinted  that  he 
AVHS  mercenary  rather  than  affectionate;  but  he  was  such 
a  jolly  fellow,  that  it  was  difficult  to  fix  upon  him  the  stig- 
ma of  bad  motives.  Mr.  Alvord  was  very  devoted  to  Mar- 
garet, and  Floramond  must  have  felt  that  she  would  share 
as  largely  in  Mr.  Alvord's  will  (and  he  did  not  know  then 
but  he  had  already  made  one)  as  he,  and  perhaps  more 
largely.  Finally  he  proposed  marriage  to  his  adopted 
sister :  as  the  best  means,  probably,  of  making  sure  of  a 
large  portion  of  Mr.  Alvord's  estate. 

There  was  no  blood  relation  between  him  and  Margaret, 
and  no  reason  in  the  law  why  they  might  not  marry ; 
ptill,  Margaret  was  not  a  little  shocked  at  the  proposal 
from  Floramond,  with  whom,  as  a  "  brother,"  she  had  en- 
joyed a  very  pleasant  intimacy  —  one  which  she  would 
not  have  allowed  on  any  other  consideration  than  that 
of  brother-and-sisterhood.  But  Floramond  was  evidently 
greatly  taken  aback  at  her  delicate  refusal  of  his  offer. 
But  he  persisted  in  his  suit,  not  willing  to  suffer  defeat  so 
easily ;  and  for  a  long  while  annoyed  Margaret  with  his 
repeated  offers,  which  annoyance  she  gently  concealed, 
though  persisting  ever  in  the  firmness  of  her  resolve  to 
"  not  marry  anybody." 

But  Floramond  did  not  believe  her  in  this  resolution  to 
remain  unmarried,  believing  that  she  would  marry  some- 
body else, —  "take  up  with  the  first  good  chance,"  —  and 
so  he  laid  her  refusal  to  heart,  as  a  personal  affront  to  him- 
self, and  ridiculed  the  objection  which  she  sometimes 
in;ule,  in  that  they  were  brother  and  sister  in  spirit,  if  not 
in  blood  ;  which  objection  was  really  a  serious  one  in  her 
feelings,  although  her  reason  told  her  that  it  need  not  pre- 


1 

•••;•;  (;  v_ 

•/•-:       '.      ^l 


TESTAMENTARY  ARRANGEMENTS.         521 

vail,  because  they  were  really  no  kin  to  each  other.  Be- 
sides, there  was  something,  which  she  could  not  well  define 
to  herself,  about  I^loramond,  which,  while  it  did  not  forbid 
her  loving  him  as  a  brother,  made  her  shudder  when  she 
thought  of  him  in  the  light  of  a  possible  husband.  Flora- 
mond  renewed  his  suit  from  time  to  time,  constantly  with 
increased  tenderness  and  delicacy,  and  finally  resolved 
himself,  after  her  repeated  refusals,  into  the  very  best- 
behaving  of  brothers. 

Finally,  old  Mr.  Alvord,  very  perceptibly  approaching 
his  end,  one  day  rode  out  with  Margaret  behind  his  span 
of  fine  horses,  with  which,  and  a  nice  double  wagon,  he  had, 
among  other  luxuries,  provided  himself  in  his  dotage,  and 
regarding  which  the  neighbors  said  he  was  becoming  fool- 
ishly extravagant.  But  they  little  understood  how  much 
the  quiet,  saving  old  man  was  worth.  He  had  been  accus- 
tomed to  drive  his  own  horses,  but  of  late  was  getting 
weak,  and  so  transformed  his  "  hired  man  "  into  a  driver 
that  day. 

John  Holt  was  a  faithful,  honest  man,  who  had  lived  with 
Mr.  Alvord  for  nearly  twenty  years,  and  was  intrusted 
with  everything.  Mr.  Alvord  considered  him  one  of  the 
family  :  and  although  he  always  paid  John  for  his  services 
quite  liberally,  so  tnat  John  had  considerable  money  out 
at  interest,  yet  he  intended  to  remember  him  in  his  will  to 
the  extent  of  a  thousand  dollars,  and  on  that  day  was, 
therefore,  not  at  all  private  in  what  he  said  to  Margaret. 
John  heard  most  of  it,  and  particularly  remembered  what 
Mr.  Alvord  said  in  regard  to  the  legacy  to  him.  He  told 
Margaret  how  much  he  was  worth,  —  a  sum  which  quite 
astonished  her, — and  consulted  with  her  in  regard  to  what 
he  should  leave  each  of  the  children,  to  some  of  whom  he 
proposed  to  leave  but  comparatively  a  small  amount ;  but 
in  each  case  Margaret  urged  him  to  leave  more.  He  had 
done  much  for  them  all,  but  she  was  willing,  in  her  gener- 
ous nature,  that  he  should  make  such  legacies,  and  leave 
the  remainder  of  his  property  to  her  and  her  children.  To 


522  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

Floramond  he  had  determined,  he  said,  to  leave  one  fourth; 
to  divide  another  fourth  between  the  other  four ;  and  to 
give  to  Margaret  and  her  children  half,  imposing  upon  her 
the  payment  of  a  thousand  dollars  to  John,  and  the  distri- 
bution of  certain  matters  of  personal  property  to  a  few 
friends  lie  named;  five  hundred  dollars  to  be  kept  at  inter- 
est, and  that  given  annually  to  an  old,  decrepid  widow  in 
the  place,  who  had  been  a  schoolmate  with  him  in  Vermont, 
and  whose  husband  had  died  in  Mr.  Alvord's  employ,  alter 
many  years  of  service.  This  she  was  to  have  as  long  as 
she  lived,  and  he  told  Margaret  that  day  that  he  had  for 
several  years  contributed  a  like  sum  to  her  support,  and  that 
he  had  told  the  widow  that  if  she  outlived  him,  he  would 
provide  as  much  for  her  in  his  will.  These  with  other 
things  John  had  heard  Mr.  Alvord  say  to  Margaret,  and 
also  that  he  had  once  made  another  will  in  different  terme, 
which  was  lodged  with  Floramond,  and  had  been  drawn  by 
Squire  Emerson,  a  crafty  old  lawyer,  when  Mr.  Alvord  was 
once  stopping  at  Florainond's  for  a  week  or  two.  "  But 
the  last  will  always  revokes  a  former  one,"  he  told  Marga- 
ret; so  that  he  guessed  that  he  would  leave  that  where  it 
was.  It  was  thought  afterwards  that  Mr.  Alvord  had  some 
fear  that  if  he  called  on  Floramond  to  deliver  up  the  will 
it  might  lead  to  trouble.  Floramond  might  fear  that  he 
was  not  to  fare  so  well. 

The  next  day  Mr.  Alvord  and  John  drove  off  to  an  old 
friend  of  Mr.  A.'s, — -'a  sort  of  universal  genius,  who  held 
multiplied  petty  offices,  and  withal  was  considerable  of  a 
lawyer.  He  drew  a  will  after  Mr.  Alvord's  dictation,  and 
Mr.  A.  signed  it;  but  there  was  nobody  at  home  but  the 
old  scribe,  save  a  very  young  girl  in  the  kitchen;  and  as 
John  was  a  legatee,  the  man  advised  Mr.  A.  that  he  could 
not  properly  be  a  witness,  —  so  Mr.  Alvord  said  he  would 
find  others  to  witness  it;  and  on  his  way  home  stopped  at  a 
neighbor's,  went  in,  and  declared  the  document  to  be  his 
last  will,  etc.,  in  the  presence  of  two  persons,  who  sub- 
scribed it  as  witnesses.  But  John  did  not  know  this  ol  a 


MISSING.  523 

surety.  He  suspected  the  document  had  been  properly 
declared.  Mr.  Alyord  went  home  and  showed  the  will  to 
Margaret,  and  deposited  it  in  a  secret  place  among  his 
drawers,  telling  her  where.  "  Now,"  said  he,  "  if  the  house 
should  catch  a-fire,  you  run  for  this  will  the  first  thing,  for 
I  can't  bear  the  bother  of  making  another." 

Mr.  Alvord  lived  on  a  year  more.  Meanwhile  the  people 
who  had  signed  the  will  as  witnesses  had  "  sold  out,"  arid 
followed  a  son  to  California ;  but  neither  old  Mr.  Alvord 
nor  Margaret  thought  of  them  then  in  connection  with 
the  will. 

By  and  by  Mr.  A.'s  "  time  "  came,  and  with  all  his  adopted 
children  about  him,  he,  after  giving  them  his  parting  bless- 
ing, dropped  aAvay  quietly  into  the  arms  of  death.  Flora- 
mond  took  upon  himself  the  management  of  the  funeral, 
which  for  that  place  was  made  somewhat  extraordinary, 
and  the  plain  old  Mr.  Alvord  went  to  his  grave  with  a 
pomp  and  show  which  he  certainly  would  not  have  ap- 
proved could  he  have  foreseen  it.  After  the  funeral  the 
children  gathered  at  the  house,  and  Floramond  told  them 
that  he  had,  somewhere  among  his  papers,  a  document 
•which  Mr.  Alvord  had  given  him,  sealed  up,  and  which  he 
said  was  his  will.  He  did  not  know  its  contents,  he  said, 
but  would  like  to  have  a  time  appointed  when  they  could 
all  be  there  and  hear  it  read.  Margaret  said  nothing,  for 
she  hardly  comprehended  matters,  so  great  and  real  was 
her  grief  over  the  death  of  Mr.  Alvord;  and  a  time  was 
appointed,  one  week  from  that  day,  for  them  all  to  convene 
and  hear  the  will  read. 

After  they  had  all  left,  Margaret  bethought  her  of  what 
Mr.  Alvord  had  said  a  year  before  about  a  former  will,  and 
went  to  look  for  the  will  which  Mr.  Alvord  had  given  into 
her  keeping,  but  it  was  not  to  be  found !  Where  was  it 
gone  ?  She  remembered  to  have  seen  it  several  times 
8ince  its  deposit  in  the  drawer,  when  looking  there  for 
other  things ;  but  she  could  not  convince  herself  whether 
or  not  she  had  seen  it  within  some  months.  She  talked 


524  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

with  John  about  it,  and  John  told  her  of  what  Mr.  Alvord 
had  done  that  day  he  rode  to  the  old  clerk's  with  him  ;  and 
she  rode  over  to  the  clerk's  to  consult  him,  but  he  said  he 
knew  nothing  about  the  witnessing,  —  that  the  will  must 
have  been  properly  witnessed  to  be  valid;  and  he  said, 
too,  that  perhaps  Mr.  Alvord  had  altered  his  mind,  —  had 
destroyed  the  will  without  letting  her  know  it ;  that  the 
will,  as  drawn,  revoked  all  former  wills,  and  that  if  the  ex- 
istence of  this  latter  will  could  be  proved,  it  would  set 
aside  whatever  will  Floramond  had  had,  but  that  it  would 
be  impossible,  in  the  present  state  of  things,  to  prove  the 
existence  of  the  lost  will,  —  that  if  anybody  had  stolen  it 
away,  that  fact  could  never  probably  be  discovered.  The 
conclusion  of  Margaret,  after  talking  with  this  man,  was 
to  await  and  see  what  Floramond  would  bring. 

The  day  came,  and  with  it  Floramond,  with  the  will  done 
up  in  a  once  white  paper,  but  which  time  had  turned 
brown,  and  strongly  sealed.  The  seals  Floramond  broke 
before  them  all,  drew  forth  the  document,  and  handed  it  to 
one  of  his  brothers,  saying,  "  You  read  it  out  for  us.  You 
can  read  the  old  man's  writing  better  than  I." 

The  brother  took  it,  opened  it,  and  said, — 

"This  is  not  his  writing  —  somebody's  else.  It  looks 
like  a  lawyer's  '  quail  tracks,'  but "  (turning  it  over),  "  the 
signature  is  father's." 

He  tried  to  read  it,  but  found  himself  puzzled ;  and  one 
of  the  sisters  tried  to  read  it  also,  with  like  result.  At  la-t 
it  was  declared  by  them  all  that  Floramond  understood  how 
to  decipher  poor  writing  better  than  the  rest,  and  he  read 
at  it,  making  bungling  work,  however  (pretendedly,  of 
course,  for  well  he  knew  every  word  of  it).  By  this  will 
Mr.  Alvord  had  left  all  his  estate  to  his  "  beloved  son  Flora- 
mond," subject  to  the  payment  of  certain  annuities  to  some 
of  the  children,  among  whom  was  .Margaret,  who  was  to 
have  six  hundred  dollars  a  year  until  her  children  should 
arrive  at  age,  and  then  three  hundred  during  her  life.  The 
rest  all  had  less.  Indeed,  the  minister,  for  whom  Mr.  Alvord 


.  PLAYING   HIS  PART.  525 

had  done  most  in  the  way  of  giving  him  money,  was 
allowed  an  annuity  of  but  one  hundred  dollars  (which  was 
to  provide  him  a  rental,  the  will  said),  for  three  years,  and 
was  then  cut  off  entirely. 

Mr.  Alvord's  will  was  quite  elaborate,  and  stated  where 
his  property  was  situated,  —  some  in  this  and  that  farm, 
stock  in  manufacturing  companies,  money  in  banks  and  on 
interest ;  and  they  were  all  astonished  at  the  large  amount 
of  it.  The  will  had  been  written  five  years  and  more  be- 
fore, and  there  was  one  peculiar  clause  in  it,  —  the  sugges- 
tion of  the  crafty  lawyer,  probably,  —  which  was  to  the 
effect  that  Mr.  Alvord  had  never  before  made  a  will,  and 
that  he  should  never  make  another  ;  that  he  might  destroy 
this,  and  leave  all  his  children  to  share  alike  if  he  did  so. 

Margaret  was  confounded.  She  saw  that  she  was  left, 
as  it  were,  in  the  hands  of  Floramond,  her  often-rejected 
suitor,  and  she  thought  she  saw  a  smile  of  triumph  on  his 
face.  She  was  greatly  confused  as  to  whether  she"  should 
say  anything  about  the  other  will  or  not ;  but  she  thought, 
finally,  that  if  she  was  to  ever  say  anything  about  it,  now 
was  the  time,  when  all  were  there.  So  she  told  them  all 
about  it,  and  where  it  was  kept;  how  Mr.  Alvord  had 
brought  it  "home,  and  how  it  left  a  great  deal  more  to  them 
all,  and  only  one  fourth  to  Floramond,  and  who  witnessed 
it.  This  made  the  rest  jealous  of  Floramond.  With  the 
old  will  they  were  in  his  hands :  they  were  left  compara- 
tively poor.  He  had  all,  and  the  estate  was  far  larger  than 
any  of  them  had  thought,  and  it  was  probable  that  it  had 
increased  much  in  the  five  years,  too. 

Floramond  professed  to  be  astonished  at  what  Margaret 
told,  and  said  he  was  willing  to  abide,  of  course,  as  he 
would  be  compelled  to  do,  by  any  subsequent  will ;  but 
why,  if  father  had  made  another  will,  did  he  not  call  for 
this  one.  and  tear  it  up?  His  not  calling  for  it  made 
him  think,  he  said,  that  Margaret  was  probably  mistaken. 
But  Margaret  was  firm  in  her  statement,  and  declared  that 
her  father  had  made  her  read  it  all  over  to  him,  and  she 


KNOTS  UNTIED. 

*old  them  about  the  thousand  dollars  left  to  John,  and  what 
John  said  about  Mr.  Alvonl's  calling,  on  the  way  home,  to 
get  the  will  witnessed.  Then  they  sent  out  for  John,  who 
wa-  at  work  on  the  farm,  and  he  came  in  and  told  his  story 
before  them  all.  lie  could  not  say  that  Mr.  Alvorcl  had 
left  him  a  thousand  dollars  in  the  will,  but  that  the  day  be- 
fore he  had  it  drawn  he  said  he  was  going  to  do  so,  and 
he  supposed  he  did. 

At  this  point  Floramond,  in  a  mild  way,  exhibiting  no 
uneasiness,  blandly  suggested  that  '  before  taking  the  will 
left  with  him  to  the  surrogate's  office,  the  house  ought  to 
be  searched  thoroughly.  Perhaps  Mr.  Alvord,  who  had 
become  quite  childish  and  fickle  in  the  last  few  weeks  of  his 
life,  and  was  always  an  over-cautious  man,  had,  some  time 
when  Margaret  was  away,  put  the  document  into  a  safer 
place,  intending  to  tell  her  Avhere,  but  forgetting  it ; '  and 
so  it  was  resolved  by  all  of  them  that  such  a  search  should 
be  made  at  once#  before  they  parted ;  and  for  an  hour  that 
house  was  searched  in  every  nook,  drawer,  and  possible 
hiding-place.  Old  linen,  which  had  not  been  for  twenty 
years  drawn  forth  from  trunks  and  chests  which  held  it, 
was  tumbled  over,  —  in  short,  the  search  was  complete  as  it 
could  be,  —  but  no  will  could  be  found ;  and  there  seemed 
but  one  way  to  do  —  for  all  to  acquiesce,  and  accept  their 
fate  upon  the  terms  of  the  will  which  Floramond  produced, 
and  which  was  all  correct  in  form. 

But  there  was  no  little  feeling  among  the  children,  some 
of  whom  declared  it  impossible  that  Mr.  Alvord  intended 
to  make  such  disposition  of  his  property ;  that  Floramond 
must  have  in  some  way  used  improper  influence  with  old 
Mr.  Alvord ;  and  all  the  public,  when  they  came  to  hear  of 
the  will,  were  somehow  impressed  with  the  same  opinion : 
nevertheless  they  all  said  that  Floramond  was  a  jovial  fel- 
low, and  very  thrifty :  that  Mr.  Alvord  liked  thrifty  people, 
and  as  he  had  provided  Margaret  with  a  sum  sufficient  in 
those  days  to  live  on,  and  had  given  her  the  rent  of  the 
house  for  life,  perhaps,  it  was,  on  the  whole,  just  the  thing 


A  RASH   COURTSHIP.  527 

he  should  have  done.  As  for  the  lost  will,  that  got  noised 
about,  and  although  everybody  believed  what  Margaret 
said,  yet  the  majority  thought  that  probably  Mr.  Alvord 
had  destroyed  it.  The  will  which  Floramond  had  was  duly 
presented  and  proved  at  the  surrogate's  office,  and  the 
estate  settled  under  it. 

Time  went  on,  and  it  brought  Floramond  frequently  to 
see  Margaret,  —  to  look  after  her  affairs,  and  occasionally 
to  bring  her  money.  Now  that  she  was  in  these  strait- 
ened circumstances  he  pressed  his  suit  quite  violently  and 
provokingly  at  times ;  and  although  her  patience  was  often- 
times sorely  tried,  she  bore  her  vexation  quite  philosophi- 
cally. It  was  evident  that  he  did  not  want  her  for  her 
money,  for  she  had  none ;  but  she  could  not  believe,  after 
all,  fhat  he  loved  her,  and  she  was  sure  that  she  did  not 
love  him.  Floramond  was  a  good  business  man,  and  aside 
from  the  property  he  got  under  the  will,  he  had  accumu- 
lated a  handsome  sum  for  himself,  and  in  the  course  of  a 
year  or  two  from  Mr.  Alvord's  death  he  began  to  assume 
the  airs  and  ways  of  a  rich  man ;  —  enlarged  his  house  and 
adorned  his  grounds  quite  expensively ;  built  a  row  of 
houses  in  the  village  to  rent,  and  possessed  himself  of 
"  the  best  team  in  the  county,"  as  he  was  pleased  to  de- 
clare his  noble  span  of  black  coach  horses. 

All  this  while  he  was  trying  to  court  Margaret  up  to  the 
accepting  point,  but  he  failed  signally,  and  every  time  he 
visited  her  he  grew  less  and  less  courteous ;  finally,  in  the 
third  year,  she  could  not  get  her  annuity  as  she  wanted  it. 
He  promised,  but  did  not  fulfil  at  the  time  as  before,  and 
he  was  "  short "  in  his  words  with  her,  and  spiteful  at  times. 
At  last,  as  if  determined  to  force  her  into  compliance,  he 
visited  her  one  day,  and  having  failed,  though  using  as 
much  severity  as  he  could  command  to  win  her  consent,  he 
got  quite  angry,  and  wished  to  know  of  her  if  she  intended 
to  always  spurn  him ;  asked  her  if  she  had  made  up  her 
mind  to  that,  at  any  rate.  She  objected  to  the  word 
"  spurn,"  for  she  wished,  she  said,  to  receive  and  treat  him 
31  21 


528  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

as  a  brother,  but  she  had  always  declined  his  offers  of 
marriage,  as  she  thought,  in  a  clear,  frank  way,  and  she 
considered  that  he  ought  to  know,  after  all,  that  she  could 
never  consent  to  marry  him. 

"  Then  you  shall  suffer,"  said  he,  bringing  his  teeth  to- 
gether with  greater  firmness,  as  if  he  would  like  to  put  an 
end  to  her  existence  with  one  bite  ;  and  he  manifested  him- 
self with  such  a  degree  of  anger  that  she  was  frightened, 
and  arose  from  her  chair  to  leave  the  room,  when  he  rushed 
and  caught  her  firmly  by  the  hand,  and  telling  her  to  look 
straight  at  him,  exclaimed,  — 

"  You  proud  thing !  I  tell  you  now  that  if  you  had  con- 
sented to  have  me  at  first  you  should  now  have  half  of 
all  father  Alvord's  property  as  well  as  mine ;  but  I  have 
outwitted  you.  I  got  him  to  make  his  will  as  he  did,*and 
thanks  to  John's  blundering,  I  knew  when  he  made  the 
other;  and  now,  as  there's  no  witness  here,  I'll  leave  you 
to  guess  what  became  of  it ;  and  you  may  groan  in  pov- 
erty for  all  me,  for  you'll  have  to  sue  me  every  time  you 
get  any  more  money  out  of  the  estate." 

He  had  hardly  ejaculated  these  words,  in  anger,  before 
he  seemed  to  see  hia  error,  and  as  Margaret,  now  under- 
standing his  villany,  tore  herself  from  his  grasp,  and  rushed 
into  another  room,  he  followed  her,  and  tried  to  laugh  away 
the  effect  of  what  he  had  said. 

"  Ho  !  ho  !  Margaret,  haven't  I  told  you  a  pretty  story 
though?  I  wish  it  had  been  true,  I  declare;  but  I  must 
tell  you  that  I  never  believed  a  word  about  the  second 
will.  You  must  have  been  mistaken,  and  as  to  the  first, 
father  and  Emerson,  the  old  lawyer,  got  it  up  without  my 
knowledge." 

Margaret,  who  now  began  to  see  into  his  real  character, 
and  who  hated  hypocrisy,  turned  upon  him,  and  said, 
"There's  no  occasion  for  you  adding  falsehood  to  your 
rudeness,  sir.  Father  made  that  will  under  your  direc- 
tion, in  my  opinion,  and  as  for  the  last  will,. you  do  believe 
that  it  existed,  and  1  see  now  that  you  probably  abstracted 


WHOM  LAWYERS   WORK  FOR.  529 

it,  and  I  wish  I  could  never  see  your  face  again  till  you 
can  come  prepared  to  prove  that  you  did  not.  Good  day, 
sir,"  and  she  attempted  to  pass  by  him. 

But  he  put  himself  in  her  way,  and  said  she  shouldn't 
stir  a  step  till  she  took  back  those  words. 

"  I  have  spoken  what  I  feel  must  be  the  truth,  and  I 
will  not  retract  a  word,"  said  she  ;  "  and  you  must  let  me 
pass,  or  I  will  call  in  John.  There  he  is,"  said  she,  point- 
ing through  the  window  at  John,  but  a  short  distance  off. 
The  mild,  quiet  face  of  Margaret  must  have  assumed  great 
firmness  then,  for  Floramond  looked  but  once  into  her  eyes, 
and  stepped  aside ;  and  as  she  passed,  exclaimed,  — 

"  You  shall  live  to  rue  this,  to  your  full  satisfaction." 

And  she  did  suffer.  Floramond  managed  to  vex  her  in 
many  ways,  —  sold  off  a  portion  of  her  garden,  on  which  she 
depended  for  her  vegetables,  contending  that  it  was  only 
the  rent  of  the  house  that  was  left  her  by  the  will ;  and 
sending  her  ten  dollars  on  her  annuity  when  she  wanted 
perhaps  thirty  or  forty  ;  and  getting  up  stories  about  her 
extravagance,  etc.  But,  fortunately,  she  had  a  character 
and  reputation  formed,  and  he  could  only  vex  her  in  money 
matters  to  any  great  extent. 

Weary  months  passed,  and  Margaret  frequently  thought 
of  the  wills,  and  what  Floramond  had  said ;  and  when  the 
ministerial  brother  called  to  see  her  one  day,  about  the 
time  his  hundred-dollar  annuity  "for  a  rental"  was  run- 
ning out,  Margaret  told  him  something  of  her  troubles, 
and  her  conviction  that  Floramond  had  stolen  the  will. 
The  minister  was  not  very  astute  in  law  matters,  but  he 
could  see  that  it  would  only  be  by  a  "  sort  of  miracle,"  as 
he  told  her,  that  they  could  ever  learn  anything  of  what 
had  become  of  the  will ;  but  Margaret  was  more  hopeful, 
and  continued  to  plan  ways  of  getting  at  the  truth. 

'  There  was  that  old  lawyer  who  had  drawn  the  first  will. 
May  be  he  could  find  out  something,  —  lawyers  work  for 
the  side  that  employs  them ; '  but  the  minister  dampened 
her  ardor  in  that  direction,  by  telling  her  that  Floramond 


530  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

probably  held  him  under  a  general  retainer,  and  he  could 
not  be  reached ;  but  finally  Margaret  was  so  anxious  to 
have  something  done,  that  the  minister  consented  to  aid 
her  to  the  extent  of  his  little  ability,  as  he  was  modestly 
pleased  to  say,  and  at  last  it  came  into  his  head  that  when 
he  was  once  supplying  for  a  few  weeks  a  classmate's  pul- 
pit in  Brooklyn,  he  had  one  evening  heard  one  of  the  con- 
gregation telling  some  marvelous  stories  about  the  adroit- 
ness and  sagacity  of  detective  officers,  and  he  spoke  to 
Margaret  of  this. 

This  was  something  novel  to  Margaret.  She  knew  there 
were  police  officers,  and  so  forth,  but  was  not  aware  that 
there  were  organized  forces  of  private  officers,  detectives. 
The  minister  told  her  one  of  the  strange  stories  he  had 
heard,  and  Margaret  was  quite  astonished  by  it,  and  be- 
lieved that  if  detectives  could  find  out  "  such  a  thing  as 
that  they  could  really  serve  us,"  and  it  was  resolved  by 
them  that  a  detective  should  be  obtained,  and  he  might 
work  out  something. 

All  the  rest  of  the  children,  except  Floramond,  were 
consulted,  and  agreed  to  contribute  towards  procuring  the 
detective ;  and  Margaret,  who  had  got  wrought  up  about 
the  matter,  and  was  a  very  capable  woman  to  perform 
whatever  she  undertook,  declared  that  she  would  procure 
the  detective.  Her  cousin  had  long  wished  her  to  visit 
her  at  Jamaica  (I  think  it  was),  Long  Island,  and  in  going 
through  New  York  she  would  get  some  advice,  and  hunt 
up  a  detective ;  and  thus  it  came  that  I  chanced  to  be 
called  in  the  case,  and  I  obtained  from  her  about  what  in- 
formation I  have  thus  far  embodied  in  my  narrative. 

I  told  her  it  was  apparently  a  hopeless  case ;  that  prob- 
ably Floramond  (who,  I  said,  had  doubtless  abstracted 
the  will)  destroyed  it  at  once,  as  any  prudent  man  would 
have  done,  and  that  I  saw  no  possible  clew  to  the  matter. 
But  she  was  so  urgent,  and  so  willing  to  pay  me  for  my 
time  to  go  and  see  the  rest  of  the  family,  and  talk  with 
them,  and  to  look  the  matter  over  on  the  spot,  that  I  con- 


FLATTERING   AN  OLD   LAWYER.  531 

sented  to  go,  which  I  did  duly.  I  learned  but  little  more 
than  I  have  recited,  in  the  place  where  Margaret  lived, 
but  1  thought  I  would  like  to  visit  Floramond's  lawyer, 
and  found  myself  duly  at  his  office. 

I  am  very  fond  of  the  members  of  the  profession  gener- 
ally. They  are  apt  to  be  more  "  men  of  the  world  "  than 
most  other  people.  The  practice  of  their  profession  brings 
them  into  contact  with  all  classes  of  men,  and  they  learn 
more  or  less  of  charity,  and  are,  in  fact,  among  the  most 
reliable  of  citizens  everywhere.  But  there  was  some- 
thing in  this  lawyer's  face  (old  Boyd,  we  will  call  him,  and 
but  for  a  son  of  his,  an  honorable  man  in  an  important  posi- 
tion, I  would  call  the  old  villain's  name  fully)  which  re- 
vealed to  me  that  I  had  a  curious  customer  to  deal  with  ; 
that  he  lacked  moral  principle,  and  was  capable  of  any 
sort  of  dark  deed,  murder  included,  perhaps. 

I  said  to  myself,  instinctively,  this  old  Boyd  is  at  the 
bottom  of  this  matter  of  the  wills,  and  he  has  not  let  an 
opportunity  pass  to  get  Floramond  Alvord  in  his  clutches, 
and  keep  him  there.  That  second  will  was  taken  by  Flor- 
amond, I  said  to  myself,  and  the  chances  are  that  he 
showed  it  to  Boyd,  and  if  he  did,  the  old  man  was  cun- 
ning enough  to  keep  it.  At  this  point  I  changed  the  plan 
of  operations  which  I  had  in  theory  when  I  entered  his 
office,  and  talked  with  him  about  things  in  general ;  told 
him  I  was  a  stranger  from  New  York,  stopping  a  day  or 
two  in  the  village ;  that  when  I  was  younger  1  had  read 
law  a  little,  and  always  felt  more  at  home  in  a  lawyer's 
office  than  I  did  in  a  country  bar-room  or  hotel  parlor,  and 
seeing  his  office,  had  wandered  into  it. 

The  old  man  had  considerably  many  books,  but  they 
did  not  look  very  inviting;  however,  I  complimented  him 
on  the  size  of  his  library,  and  at  last  asked  him  about  his 
practice,  and  found  that  he  had  a  good  deal  of  patronage, 
considerable  of  which  his  age  prevented  him  from  attending 
to,  such  as  that  in  justices'  courts ;  and  finally  I  suggested 
that  I  had  a  brother  who  had  studied  law  a  few  months  in 


532  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

the  city,  and  I  thought  it  would  be  better  for  him  to  study 
with  somebody  in  the  country ;  there  were  a  good  many 
temptations  for  a  young  man  to  waste  his  time,  in  the  city. 
He  seemed  pleased,  brightened  up  a  little,  threw  off  the 
sombre  shadows  from  his  face,  and  went  to  bidding  for  my 
brother,  by  telling  me  of  this  and  tlmt  man  who  had  studied 
law  with  him,  and  who  were  now  eminent  in  the  profes- 
sion, —  which  was  a  fact,  as  I  afterwards  learned. 

So  I  contracted  with  him  to  have  my  brother  come  and 
study  with  him ;  and  before  I  left  the  town  I  had  secured 
good  board  at  a  moderate  price  for  him,  and  went  away. 
I  lost  no  time  in  conferring  with  Margaret  as  to  her  ability 
to  furnish  me  about  such  a  given  sum  of  money  a  month 
for  three  months,  not  over  six  at  most,  and  I  found  she 
could  do  it.  I  told  her  that  she  must,  ask  me  no  ques- 
tions, and  in  fact  must  not  know  of  any  such  man  as  I,  or 
speak  my  name  ;  and  that  if  my  plans  succeeded,  she  would, 
of  course,  know  the  facts,  and  that  would  be  enough ;  and 
if  they  failed,  after  proper  trial,  I  would  tell  them  to  her, 
so  that  she  should  see  what  use  her  money  had  been 
put  to.  She  was  perfectly  reasonable,  and  consented 
to  all. 

I  found  myself  in  New  York  city  in  two  days  from  that 
time,  and  procured  a  young  man,  on  whom  I  bestowed  my 
last  name,  and  sent  him  on  with  a  proper  letter  of  intro- 
duction to  Mr.  Boyd. 

I  told  him  he  had  better  tell  Mr.  Boyd  that  he  had  forgot- 
ten all  the  law  he  had  read,  and  that  he  guessed  he  had 
better  read  over  Blackstone  again  at  first.  I  had  given 
the  young  man  the  points  of  the  entire  case  as  I  under- 
stood it,  and  told  him  what  I  wanted  him  to  do  —  to  take 
his  time,  to  study  well,  and  to  watch  Floramond  Alvord's 
movements  in  connection  with  Mr.  Boyd  for  the  first  two  or 
three  weeks,  and  to  write  me  from  time  to  time  what  he- 
thought  of  Floramond.  But  the  first  thing  he  was  to  do, 
after  being  there  three  or  four  days,  was  to  "  slick  up  "  the 
dusty  office  a  little,  sometime  when  Boyd  Was  out,  and 


MY  HANDSOME  BROTHER.  533 

surprise  him  by  its  neatness  on  his  return,  and  thus  be- 
ginning to  win  upon  the  old  man's  respect  as  much  as 
possible;  to  then  take  down  and  rearrange  the  books 
and  the  old  papers,  and  so  get  himself  familiarized  to 
everything  in  the  office ;  and  to  do  these  things,  finally,  in 
Boyd's  presence. 

He  was  as  shrewd  a  young  man  as  I  could  possibly  have 
found,  and  he  was  a  handsome  fellow,  very.  Old  Boyd 
told  him,  when  he  presented  the  note  of  introduction,  that 
he  did  not  much  resemble  his  older  brother  !  (me),  —  which 
was  a  sad  but  absolute  truth.  But  the  young  man  was 
ready  for  him :  — 

"  No,"  said  he  ;  "  brother  takes  after  father's  family.  I'm 
said  to  be  mother's  boy." 

"  Yes,  yes,"  said  old  Boyd,  "  I'd  have  known  that  if  you 
hadn't  told  me." 

My  "  brother  "  was  not  long  in  becoming  popular  in  that 
village,  and  old  Boyd  was  quite  proud  of  him ;  but  he  did 
keep  him  studying,  was  "  faithful "  to  him,  as  he  promised 
me  he  would  be.  I  frequently  heard  from  my  "  brother," 
and  at  last  I  got  a  letter,  saying,  "  Come  on ;  I  will  meet 
you  at  No.  1 "  (which  meant  Mrs.  Margaret's)  "at  such  a 
time  as  you  may  appoint." 

I  knew  by  this  that  my  game,  had  worked  well,  and  that 
there  was  probably  no  time  to  lose ;  so  I  hastened  on,  and 
sending  a  letter  before  me,  appointing  the  time,  met  my 
"  brother  "  at  Margaret's.  There  was  the  document  — 
the  lost  will !  He  had  it  with  him.  But  what  was  to  be 
done? 

In  the  first  place,  the  witnesses  had  long  been  away  in 
California,  as  was  supposed,  and  nobody  knew  where. 
Efforts  had  been  made  by  Margaret  to  institute  a  corre- 
spondence with  them.  If  they  could  not  be  found,  how- 
ever, we  could  prove  their  signatures  by  others,  if  we 
could  find  the  experts ;  but  Margaret  had  never  been 
able  to  find  anybody  who  ever  saw  their  writing,  except 
the  old  man's,  with  chalk  on  his  barn  door,  noting  number 


534  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

pf  bushels  of  wheat,  or  when  his  cows  would  "  oome  in," 
and  that  would  hardly  do. 

But  I  bethought  mo  that  they  had  sold  out  their  farm 
when  they  went  away,  and  must  have  signed  the  deed, 
the  wife  to  convey  her  right  of  dower,  and  I  felt  easy.  I 
instructed  my  brother  to  return  to  the  office  next  morning 
as  usual,  and  go  on  with  his  studies,  and  I  would  go  to 
the  county  seat  next  day,  hunt  up  the  records,  and  possi- 
bly lind  the  deed  still  on  file  there,  as  well  as  the  record, 
and  then,  if  it  was  not  there,  I  would  go  to  the  grantees, 
and  ask  for  the  deed ;  but  these  people  were  indebted  to 
Floramond  largely,  Margaret  said,  and  would  have  to  be 
approached  carefully.  She  was  still  in  ignorance  of  the 
will  being  found,  but  knew,  of  course,  that  I  had  some 
good  reason  for  what  I  was  about,  and  she  was  equally 
ignorant  that  my  "  brother  "  was  studying  with  old  Boyd. 

I  took  the  will  and  went  next  day  to  the  county  seat, 
and  though  I  could  not  find  on  file  there  the  deed  which  I 
expected  to,  I  found  the  record  of  it,  and  the  record  and 
the  deed,  too,  of  another  conveyance  made  by  the  same 
grantors,  and,  as  luck  had  it,  made  on  the  very  day  after 
the  will  was  signed ;  and  the  signatures  to  the  two  instru- 
ments were  wondrously  similar.  I  was  satisfied  on  this 
point. 

But  there  was  another  point  to  be  gotten  over ;  and  this 
troubled  my  "  brother "  a  good  deal.  Although  he  had 
been  but  two  months  with  Mr.  Boyd,  he  had  fallen  in  love 
with  a  beautiful  girl  (who  was  the  daughter  of  the  richest 
man  in  the  town,  except  Floramond  Alvord,  and  was  on 
intimate  terms  with  Floramond's  daughters),  and  they 
svere  already  "  engaged,"  and  he  wanted  the  matter 
worked  so  that  he  need  not  be  found  out  in  it,  for  the  girl, 
he  feared,  would  "  sack  him,"  as  the  village  phrase  was,  if 
he  was  known  as  having  searched  for  and  delivered  up  the 
will.  So  I  managed  to  stop  in  disguise  at  the  same  hotel 
where  I  had  been  before,  and  to  find  my  brother  in  when 
old  Boyd  was  out,  and  learned  precisely  where  he  found 


A  LITTLE   SCHEME  PREVAILS.  535 

the  will,  apd  the  character  of  the  documents  which  were 
in  the  same  drawer  with  it ;  a  drawer  which  had  evident- 
ly not  been  opened  for  many  years,  save  to  hide  away  the 
will  in.  Among  the  other  documents  were  some  curious 
letters  to  old  Boyd,  from  a  man  by  the  name  of  Andrew 
Wilcox,  who  had  gone  away  years  before  to  the  west,  and 
died,  and  who  was  a  waggish  fellow,  and  wrote  funny  let- 
ters, in  a  very  peculiar  style  of  penmanship. 

I  was  put  to  my  wits'  end  how  to  work  matters  ;  but  my 
brother  told  me  that  in  two  days  old  Boyd  was  going  to 
start  on  a  journey,  to  be  gone  a  week ;  that  the  stage 
would  leave  the  hotel  at  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and 
after  that  I  could  come  in  again,  and  may  be  could  arrange 
something.  But  he  had  told  me  enough.  I  had  formed  my 
plan  before  his  words  were  cold.  That  night  I  found 
myself  at  one  of  the  adopted  brother's,  about  ten  miles  off; 
told  him  he  must  ask  me  no  questions  why,  but  that  I 
wanted  him  to  appear  in  the  village  at  the  time  the  stage 
was  going  off,  and  to  ask  old  Boyd  if  he  didn't  use  to  cor- 
respond with  old  Andrew  Wilcox,  —  to  which  he  would,  of 
course,  say  "  Yes ;  "  and  then  Mr.  Alvord  was  to  say,  "  I 
thought  so,  and  I'd  like,  for  a  certain  reason,  to  get  hold 
of  some  of  his  letters  to  read.  He  wrote  such  a  curious 
hand,  didn't  he?"  that  probably  old  Boyd  would  say  he 
was  going  to  be  back  in  a  week,  and  then  he'd  hunt  them 
up;  but  Mr.  Alvord  should  evince  a  desire  to  see  them  as 
soon  as  possible,  and  ask  him  if  his  clerk  couldn't  hunt  them 
for  him ;  this  to  be  done  just  as  the  stage  was  loading  up 
to  start ;  all  of  which  was  done,  and  resulted  better  than 
we  expected,  for  old  Boyd  was  in  pretty  good  spirits  that 
morning,  very  accommodating ;  and  told  Mr.  Alvord  that 
his  clerk  might  hunt  up  the  papers ;  though  he  didn't  call 
him  his  clerk  but  said,  "  Tell  the  handsome  rascal  in  my 
office  to  hunt  arid  get  you  all  of  Wilcox's  letters  to  read 
he  can  find ;  and  I  don't  mind  if  you  take  one  or  two  along 
with  you,  so  that  you  leave  me  some.  Good  morning!  " 
and  away  the  stage  rolled. 

21* 


536  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

I  told  Mr.  Alvord  that  I  would  go  over  to  the  office,  and 
he  might  drop  in  and  ask  the  clerk  for  the  letters,  in 
the  course  of  ten  minutes.  I  went  and  arranged  things, 
and  he  came  and  told  my  brother  what  Boyd  had  said. 
Mv  brother  made  unsuccessful  search  in  three  or  four 
places,  and  at  last  came  upon  the  letters ;  hauled  out  a  few 
of  them,  which  Mr.  Alvord  run  over,  laughing  here  and 
there  at  the  odd,  eccentric  expressions,  which  he  said  were 
just  like  the  stories  he  had  heard  about  the  old  man,  when 
my  brother  asked  if  he  would  like  to  see  more.  As  he 
wished  to,  they  were  produced,  and  among  them  was  re- 
posing the  will  where  I  had  placed  it. 

Mr.  Alvord  was  sitting  by  a  little  round  table,  and  as 
my  brother  placed  the  second  batch  on  the  table,  1  asked 
him  if  he  would  not  be  kind  enough  to  go  over  to  the 
hotel  (but  a  few  steps  off,)  and  buy  himself  a  cigar,  and 
bring  some  to  me,  handing  him  money.  He  went  out ;  and 
placing  my  hand  among  the  letters,  I  drew  out  the  will, 
and  placed  it  in  Mr.  Alvord's  hands  —  "  You  found  that  — 
do  you,  understand  ?  But  I  will  take  it,  and  be  responsi- 
ble for  its  return,  if,  after  we  have  examined  it,  you  think 
it  better  be  returned."  He  had  no  notion  of  the  will  yet, 
and  acted  with  a  sort  of  mechanical  blindness,  as  I  guided 
him,  throughout  wondering  what  I  could  be  up  to.  (I  had 
agreed  to  pay  him  very  liberally  for  his  time.)  "  When  the 
clerk  comes  in,"  said  I,  as  I  put  the  paper  into  my  pocket, 
"  remind  him  that  old  Boyd  said  you  might  take  off  some 
of  the  letters  ;  the  whole  stage  full  heard  him  say  so ;  and 
do  you  select  a  few,  and  when  you  come  out,  come  over  to 
the  hotel,  and  find  me.  I'll  be  there." 

The  clerk  came  in,  and  brought  me  the  cigars,  and  I 
offered  one  to  Mr.  Alvord,  who  declined  to  smoke,  but 
kept  on  reading  the  letters ;  and  I,  bidding  him  good  morn- 
ing, walked  out  after  lighting  my  cigar.  In  the  course  of 
a  quarter  of  an  hour  he  came  out;  said  ho  found  "  Wil- 
cox's  letters  very  interesting;  "  and  now,  said  he,  "  I  want 


A   QUESTION  OF   "INTEREST."  537 

to  know  what  all  this  means."  I  got  him  aside  as  soon  as 
I  could,  and  we  went  up  to  my  room. 

Locking  the  door,  I  said,  "  Mr.  Alvord,  on  turning  over 
these  letters  of  Wilcox's,  you  came  across  a  paper  which 
you  took  possession  of  for  a  moment.  Now  I  want  it  un- 
derstood that  you  kept  possession  of  that ;  that  the  clerk 
handed  you  a  bundle  in  which  you  found  it,  (poor  fellow, 
what  would  he  say,  if  he  knew  that  he  had  unwittingly  dis- 
closed the  profoundest  secret  in  all  old  Boyd's  life  and 
practice?  But  no  matter  for  that.)  You  took  the  pa- 
per, and  you  handed  it  over  to  me.  and  I  am  going  to  keep 
it  for  the  general  good,  unless  you  prefer  to  keep  it.  Do 
you  understand  ?  " 

"  Why,  yes,  and  no,  too,"  said  he.  "  I  understand  the 
language  you  use,  but  I  don't  know  what  it's  all  about. 
Pray  tell  me  at  once,  and  end  my  suspense." 

"  Well,  you  promise  me  on  your  word,  as  a  gentleman, 
to  be  guided  by  me  in  the  matter  which  is  to  follow,  if  you 
think  what  I  shall  point  out  to  be  right  and  just?" 

"  Why,  yes  ;  any  man  could  safely  promise  that." 

"  Are  you  under  any  special  obligations  to  your  brother 
Floramond  ?  " 

"  No,  sir ;  only  he  has  lent  me  little  sums  of  money, 
from  time  to  time  —  which  "  — 

"  You  have  doubtless  always  paid  up?  " 

"  Yes.  with  interest." 

"  Ah,  ha  !  then  he  was  lending  you  money,  and  gettibg 
interest  on  it,  which  really  ought  to  have  been  your  own 
—  wasn't  he?" 

"  Well,  yes,  I've  felt  so  sometimes ;  but  there's  doubt 
about  it,  perhaps." 

1  had  sounded  the  man  deeply  enough,  and  saw  his  tem- 
per towards  Floramond ;  and  so,  drawing  a  little  nearer 
him,  I  said, — 

"  You  have  heard  of  me  before,  but  have  never  seen  me 
till  night  before  last ;  but  we  must  be  intimate  friends  for 
a  while.  Your  sister  Margaret  has  told  you  of  me.  I  am 


538  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

the  detective  from  New  York ;  and  this  paper  (pulling 
it  from  my  pocket)  is  old  Mr.  Alvord's  last  will  and  tes- 
tament—  the  last  one,  and  you  are  here  entitled  to  a 
fortune." 

Mr.  Alvord's  face  turned  pale  with  astonishment. 

"  Let  me  put  my  eyes  on  it ! "  said  he  ;  and  I  handed 
it  to  him,  opened.  He  ran  it  over  hurriedly,  looked  at 
the  signature,  saying,  "  There's  no  mistake  about  it ;  and 
that's  father's  signature — just  as  Margaret  always  said  it 
was.  I  had  feared  father  had  destroyed  it,  and  I  had  en- 
tirely forgotten  all  about  the  matter  for  a  good  while.  I 
gave  up  all  as  lost  the  day  that  Floramond  produced  the 
old  will,  and  we  searched  the  house,  all  of  us,  for  this." 

It  was  not  long  from  that  morning  before  we  had  every- 
thing arranged  for  bringing  Mr.  Floramoud  Alvord  to  terms, 
and  I  remained  near  the  scene  directing  matters.  I  held 
on  to  the  will,  while  the  brother  wrote  from  his  home  to 
Floramond,  that  his  father's  last  will  had  been  finally 
found  ;  that  he  felt  it  his  duty  to  inform  him  of  it  at  once, 
and  that  legal  steps  would  be  taken  directly ;  but  this  let- 
ter was  not  sent  till  on  the  day  before  old  Boyd  was 
expected  back. 

That  day  Mr.  Floramond  Alvord  visited  old  Boyd's  office, 
very  earnest  to  learn  when  he  would  be  back,  and  asked 
my  "  brother  "  to  ask  Mr.  Boyd  to  call  on  him  at  his  house 
as  soon  as  he  should  arrive.  "  Tell  him  I  have  a  very  im- 
portant matter  for  him  to  attend  to,"  said  he,  "  and  want  to 
see  him  at  once." 

Old  Boyd  arrived,  and  the  clerk  gave  him  the  word  from 
Mr.  Alvord. 

"  Some  devilish  speculation  on  hand,  I  'spose,"  said  old 
Boyd,  gruffly,  as  he  left  his  office,  and  proceeded  to  Alvord's 
house.  But  he  wasn't  gone  long,  and  soon  came  back 
to  the  office,  and  went  silently  to  rummaging  his  papers. 
He  looked  here  and  there,  as  if  his  memory  didn't  serve 
him  exactly ;  finally  he  came  to  the  drawer  with  the  Wil- 
cox  letters  in  them,  and  my  brother  watched  his  manner 


A  PART   STILL  UNREVEALED.  539 

intently.  The  old  man  took  up  the  letters,  laid  them  out ; 
took  up  other  packages,  and  laid  them  out,  and  then  laid 
them  back,  and  looking  at  the  Wilcox  letters,  said,  — 

"  These  look  as  if  they  had  been  disturbed  lately.  Have 
you  been  arranging  this  box  ?  " 

"  No,  sir.  I've  not  been  re-arranging  the  papers ;  but 
there's  a  man  been  here,  the  morning  you  went  off, 
and  said  you  told  him  he  might  hunt  for  some  letters  of 
one  Wilcox ;  and,  in  fact,  as  the  door  happened  to  be  open, 
I  overheard  you  tell  him  so,  just  as  you  got  into  the  coach, 
and  I  hunted  them  up,  and  he  took  some  of  'em,  as  he 
said  you  said  he  might ;  but  he  said  he  would  return 
them,"  said  my  brother,  very  seriously,  "  if  you  thought, 
when  you  got  home,  that  he  had  taken  too  many." 

"  Did  you  ask  him  his  name  ?  "  inquired  old  Boyd,  very 
gravely. 

"  No,  I  didn't  think  of  that.  I  supposed,  by  the  way 
you  spoke  to  him,  you  were  old  friends,  and  I  didn't  wish 
to  question  the  gentleman,"  replied  my  brother,  naively, 
with  a  probable  cock  in  his  eye,  which  might  have  revealed 
a  great  deal  if  old  Boyd  had  seen  it. 

Old  Boyd,  with  an  assumed  manner  of  great  composure, 
said,  in  response,  — 

"  I  wish  you  had  asked  his  name.  I  do  remember  some- 
body speaking  to  me,  in  my  haste  of  getting  off,  about  Wil- 
cox's  letters.  Wonder  who  it  was  ?  " 

"  I  hope  he  hasn't  taken  off  the  most  valuable  ones," 
replied  the  clerk. 

"  Well,  I  can't  tell ;  but  I  fear  he  has,"  said  old  Boyd. 
tl  I  must  find  out  who  he  was.  They'll  remember  over  to 
the  hotel,  perhaps,"  and  off  he  went  over  there ;  but  it 
wasn't  long  before  the  clerk  saw  him  on  his  way  to  Al- 
vord's  house.  What  transpired  there  then  is  only  known 
to  old  Boyd  and  Floramond  Alvord. 

By  the  next  day  the  matter  was  all  in  an  able  lawyer's 
hands,  and  Mr.  Frederic  Alvord  and  he  had  a  conference 
with  Floramond  and  old  Boyd. 


540  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

Precisely  all  that  happened  between  them  I  do  not 
know  ;  but  it  would  seem  that  Floramond  had  given  the 
latter  will  into  Boyd's  hands,  and  he  had  been  cunning 
enough  to  keep  it  as  a  terror  over  Floramond,  who  had 
indorsed  his  paper,  etc.,  etc.,  besides  always  paying  him 
enormous  fees  for  legal  business,  which  old  Boyd  managed 
to  make  quite  considerable.  Indeed,  old  Boyd  had  in- 
creased his  property  a  great  deal  during  the  five  or  six 
years,  and  it  is  probable  that  ho  used  Floramond  to  advan- 
tage in  many  ways. 

Alvord  thought  best  to  settle  with  his  brothers  and  eis- 
ters  according  to  the  terms  of  the  lost  will,  and  to  pay 
them  out  of  his  fourth  the  income  of  which  they  had  been 
respectively  deprived  of  for  the  five  years  and  more.  Old 
Boyd,  of  course,  settled  his  affairs  with  Floramond  to  suit 
himself,  and  it  is  presumed  that  he  did  not  lose  money ; 
but  it  may  be  that  he  lost  the  former's  confidence.  It  must' 
have  been  a  bitter  thing  for  old  Boyd  to  consider  how  fool- 
ishly he  played  into  Frederic  Alvord's  hands  through  the 
"VVilcox  letters.  But  old  Boyd  is  dead  now,  and  never,  I 
suppose,  learned  how  Mr.  Alvord  was  led  to  inquire  for  old 
Andrew  Wilcox's  funny  letters. 

Margaret  was  overjoyed  with  the  success  of  affairs,  and 
declared,  as  did  all  the  rest  of  the  family,  that  after  this 
she  would  consider  nothing  impossible,  and  never  lose 
hope,  even  in  the  darkest  hour.  She  is  living  still,  a  beau- 
tiful but  older  woman,  with  her  children  grown  up  about 
her,  and  married,  I  believe. 

My  "  brother,"  the  clerk,  took  to  the  profession  of  the 
law,  and  studied  with  old  Boyd  for  a  year  or  more,  and 

finished  his  studies  in  Judge 's  office,  in  Albany,  — 

eventually  marrying  the  young  lady  to  whom  I  have  allud- 
ed, and  who  brought  him  a  fortune  quite  too  large  to  be 
"  laughed  at ;  "  but  he  did  not  continue  at  the  profession 
long,  but  went  into  mercantile  business,  and  is  now  a  mem- 
ber, and  has  been  for  some  years,  of  one  of  the  most  suc- 
cessful firms  in  New  York  city.  The  firm  name  is  favora- 


MARRIED   AT   LAST.  511 

bly  known  in  all  parts  of  the  land.  I  should  say  that  he 
was,  through  me,  paid  by  Margaret  a  quite  handsome  sum 
of  money  for  his  "good  behavior"  in  the  premises;  enougli 
to  enable  him  with  economy  to  "pursue"  his  studies  — 
and  his  lady.  I  have  had  many  substantial  reasons  in  my 
life  for  not  forgetting  the  Alvord  family,  who  believe  that 
but  for  me  they  would  still  be  lacking  comfortable,  indeed, 
large  fortunes. 

Floramond  had  enough  with  his  one  fourth  ;  besides  he 
had  a  fortune  of  his  own.  He  ceased  to  persecute  Marga- 
ret instantly  on  the  development  of  his  villany,  and  two 
years  afterwards  married  a  woman,  who,  I  am  told,  came 
to  learn  of  his  conduct  (which  it  was  for  sundry  reasons 
attempted  to  keep  secret  in  the  family),  and  being  a  woman 
of  spirit,  and  much  extravagance,  leads  him  a  funny  life  — 
probably  using  her  knowledge  of  his  conduct  as  a  means 
of  controlling  him. 

Floramond,  should  this  sketch  ever  meet  his  eye,  is 
welcome  to  reflect  that  he  was  once  out-generalled  by  a 
man,  of  whom,  happening  to  see  him  (me)  one  day  at  the 
hotel  in  his  village,  he  asked  of  the  landlord,  "Who  is  that 
simpleton  ?"  The  landlord  was  only  able,  of  course,  to  give 
him  my  assumed  name,  and  say  that  I  was  from  "  Sandy 
Hill,  Washington  County  "  (as  I  had  registered  myself),  ho 
believed. 

"  Yes ;  well  I  should  think  he  was  dug  out  of  the  sand, 
somewhere,"  was  Floramond's  response.  I  hope  he  still 
thinks  so,  for  it  must  be  a  comfort  to  him. 


THE  CONFIDENTIAL  CLERK. 


THE  INNOCENT  OFTEN  STIFFEH  WITH  THE  GUILTY —  THE  DETECTIVES'  "  KET8  " 
—  REGRETS —  LEONARD  SAVAGE,  A  YOUNG  MAN  OF  M.\v  HAMPSHIRE,  AND 
HIS  FAMILY  STOCK —  RICHARD  BROOKS,  A  WEALTHY  NEW  YORK  MER- 
CHANT—  HIS  VISIT  TO  YOUNO  SAVAGE'S  FATHER  —  RESULTS — PARTIAL 
BIOGRAPHY  OF  MR.  BROOKS,  IN  WALL  STREET  AND  ELSEWHERE  —  A 
SLAVE  TO  FORTUNE  — A  FATHER'S  PRIDE  — MR.  BROOKS'S  FEARFUL 
DREAM  — MR.  BROOKS  IN  THE  OLD  HOMB  OF  HIS  CHILDHOOD  —  HOW  A 
TRUE  MAN  TREATS  HIS  WIFE — FAMILY  ASPIRATIONS  —  THE  LOVE  OF 
TOUNG  MEN  —  COUNTRY  AND  CITY  TEMPTATION  —  A  "  NEW  SUIT,"  AND  A 

TRIP  TO  THE  MOUNTAINS  —  A  SURPRISING  PRESENT  —  A  HAPPY  SEASON 

A  FEARFUL  CHANGE  COMES — THE  TERRIBLE  RESULTS  OF  AN  UNJUST 
JUDGMENT  —  ONE  OF  THE  STRANGEST  THINGS  EVER  KNOWN  —  A  CATHO- 
LIC PF.NITF.NT  AN  ACTOR  IN  THE  SCENES  —  REMORSE  —  UNRAVELLING8  IN 
AN  UNEXPECTED  WAY  —  A  SPEEDY  VOYAGE  TO  EUROPE  TO  RESTORB  THE 
WRONGED  TO  HIS  BIGHT  PLACE. 

IT  is  one  of  the  misfortunes  of  a  detective's  life,  that  he 
learns  to  be  suspicious  of  the  innocent  as  well  as  of  the 
guilty ;  and,  like  other  men,  detectives  sometimes  err  in 
their  judgment,  and  the  innocent  suffer,  not  only  under 
unjust  suspicions,  but  sometimes  the  penalty  of  offences  of 
which  they  are  not  guilty,  through  the  force  of  "  circum- 
stantial evidence"  which  is  brought  to  bear  upon  them. 
Indeed,  in  the  eye  of  the  law,  circumstantial  evidence  is 
frequently  of  more  weight  than  the  direct  testimony  of 
alleged  eye-witnesses,  for  the  latter  may  falsify,  but  cir- 
cumstances do  not  create  themselves,  and  do  not  often 
occur  simultaneously  or  in  combination.  There  can  be  no 
"  conspiracy  "  among  them,  as  between  living  witnesses. 
They  have  no  prejudices  to  express,  no  animosities  to  grat- 
ify, and  we  usually  attach  to  them  the  greatest  importance. 
Indeed,  they  are  the  keys  usually,  by  which  the  detective 

Ml 


A   LAD'S  BRIGHT   PROSPECTS.  543 

unlocks  the  mysteries  of  the  case  which  he  may  be  called 
on  to  work  up. 

But  notwithstanding  all  this,  they  are  not  always  to  be 
relied  on ;  and  when  the  innocent  suffer  from  the  misuse 
of  these  keys,  or  the  misinterpretation  of  their  significance, 
the  officer  who  uses  them  must  feel  more  keen  regrets, 
if  not  remorse,  than  if  he  had  been  misled  by  the  state- 
ments of  living  men,  inasmuch  as  it  is  his  duty  to  himself 
and  his  calling,  as  well  as  to  his  fellow-men,  to  draw  wise 
and  just  conclusions  from  the  circumstances  of  which  he 
gets  possession ;  and  in  what  I  am  about  to  tell,  I  would  be 
most  gratified  if  I  could  make  partial  amends,  publicly,  of 
tlie  result  of  an  error  of  mine  and  others,  by  using  the 
names  of  the  party  wronged.  But  the  whole  matter  was 
known  only  to  a  few,  some  of  whom  are  dead,  others  of 
whom  are  in  business  with  the  party  wronged  ;  and  ihcre 
are  one  or  two  more  whose  sympathy  for  the  innocent 
wronged  man,  has,  since  the  discovery  of  his  innocence, 
only  added  to  the  high  esteem  in  which  they  held  him. 
And  it  were  not  wise  for  him  that  I  give  publicity  to  what 
was  known  to  so  few,  and  is  to-day  practically  forgotten 
by  them.  As  I  may  not  give  the  proper  names,  I  will,  for 
convenience,  coin  them,  while  I  give  the  important  facts 
in  the  luckless  and  unhappy  case. 

Leonard  Savage  was  a  bright  boy,  brought  up  in  a  town 
in  Graft  on  County,  New  Hampshire,  and  born  of  one  of  the 
best  of  the  old  stocks  of  that  State  —  a  stock  which  had 
had  its  important  representatives  at  the  bar,  on  the  bench, 
in  Congress,  in  the  pulpit,  in  the  profession  of  medicine,  in 
journalism  (at  Boston);  in  short,  in  every  department  of 
life,  not  to  overlook  farming,  in  which  its  representatives 
had  always  excelled.  Leonard  had  been  prepared  for 
Dartmouth  College,  whither  he  was  expecting,  on  the 
opening  of  the  next  scholastic  year,  to  go,  and  with  bright 
prospects ;  for  at  the  preparatory  school  he  excelled  all  his 
mates  in  some  branches,  and  was  their  peer  in  the  rest, 
when,  in  the  summer  of  184-,  a  relative  of  his,  an  elderly 
32 


644  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

gentleman,  and  a  New  York  banker,  visited  the  White 
Mountains  for  recreation,  with  his  family,  and  called  on 
Leonard's  parents  on  his  way. 

This  gentleman,  whom  we  will  call  Richard  Brooks,  for 
the  sake  of  a  name,  was  born  in  New  Hampshire,  and,  indeed, 
was  raised  there,  at  a  place  about  twenty  miles  from  Leon- 
ard's father's,  the  two  being  about  the  same  age.  He  had 
visited  his  native  spot,  where  he  had  not  been  before  for 
twenty-five  years,  the  day  or  so  before  coming  to  Mr.  Sav- 
age's house.  At  his  native  place  he  found  but  few  faces 
he  recognized,  and  all  his  relatives  were  either  dead  or 
had  "  moved  to  the  West,  or  the  South."  "  Nothing  lejl 
there,"  said  he,  "  of  mine,  save  the  sleepers  in  the  grave- 
yard, and  the  mouldering  monuments  over  them."  He 
became  so  mournful  that  he  felt  unlike  proceeding  at  once 
to  thB  mountains  ;  and  calling  to  mind  the  joys  of  his  early 
days,  when  he  and  Mr.  Savage,  who  were  devoted  friends 
as  well  as  relatives,  used  to  interchange  frequent  visits, 
even  over  that  long  distance  of  twenty  miles,  —  longer  in 
New  Hampshire,  over  hills  and  mountains,  than  fifty  miles 
would  be  in  our  western  prairie  States,  or  even  along  the 
line  of  the  Hudson  River,  in  New  York,  —  he  set  his  heart 
upon  a  visit  to  Mr.  Savage,  who,  he  learned,  was  still  living 
in  the  old  spot,  though  for  fifteen  years  he  had  not  heard 
from  him,  so  absorbed  had  Mr.  Brooks  been  by  the  excit- 
ing life  of  a  Wall  Street  dealer,  and  with  some  operations 
which  had  called  him  more  or  less  to  Europe. 

Early  in  life  he  had  gone  to  Georgia  (the  southern 
portion  of  it,  Fort  Gaines,  I  believe),  in  a  small  mercantile 
business,  which  grew  upon  his  hands  into  something  quite 
important,  where  he  married  a  wealthy  planter's  daughter, 
and  was  able,  through  this  alliance,  to  enlarge  his  sphere 
of  business,  which  eventually  became  very  great,  and  was 
scattered  over  a  large  district.  , 

Mr.  Brooks's  early  New  England  training  had  well  disci- 
plined natural  capacities  of  no  mean  kind,  and  given  him 
advantages  as  a  business  man  at  the  South,  equalled  but 


"MORAL  DELINQUENCIES."  545 

by  very  few  if  any.  His  rise  was  rapid.  Visiting  New 
York  on  his  bridal  tour,  his  lady  formed  certain  acquaint- 
ances there,  which  led  her,  southern  born  though  she  was, 
to  desire  New  York  as  a  home.  She  constantly  urged  Mr. 
Brooks  to  dispose  of  his,  or  rather  their  scattered  business 
and  interests  in  the  South,  preserving  only  her  plantation 
for  a  winter  resort,  when  they  liked  (but  which,  by  the 
way,  they  never  occupied  after  they  came  to  New  York; 
for  the  glitter  of  fashionable  life  so  inthralled  Mrs.  Brooks, 
that  she  spent  no  winter  farther  south  than  Washington). 
Year  after  year  she  persisted,  and  Mr.  Brooks  eventually 
arranged  his  business  and  removed  to  New  York,  easily 
managing  to  get  an  interest  in  a  prosperous  mercantile 
house  as  silent  partner. 

In  this  he  embarked  a  large  share  of  his  money;  and 
finding  that  he  needed  more  active  life,  he  put  most  of  the 
rest  of  his  property  into  a  manufacturing  concern,  of  some 
department  of  which  he  took  charge.  The  latter  pros- 
pered moderately ;  but  the  "  moral  delinquencies,"  as  they 
were  modestly  called,  of  one  of  his  mercantile  partners, 
who  controlled  the  use  of  the  funds,  brought  the  house  to 
ruin,  and  Mr.  Brooks  saved  only  some  fifteen  per  cent,  of 
his  investment  out  of  the  wreck.  Putting  his  manufac- 
turing business  upon  a  good  footing,  he  thought  to  be  con- 
tent with  that ;  but  he  must  have  more  money.  The  asso- 
ciations he  and  his  family  had  made  in  New  York  must 
be  sustained,  and  it  required  more  money  than  his  manu- 
facturing business  brought  him  to  keep  up  the  style  he 
desired. 

He  was  dejected  for  a  while ;  but  having  had  more  or 
less  experience  in  stocks  and  in  Wall  Street,  through  his 
brokers,  however,  in  other  times,  he  turned  his  attention 
to  the  study  of  matters  in  that  street,  and  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  he  as  well  as  another  was  entitled  to  suc- 
ceed there,  —  and  in  the  end  he  was  not  mistaken.  Taking 
the  funds  saved  from  the  mercantile  ruin,  though  they 
were  small,  he  went  into  Wall  Street  and  formed  a  partner- 


546  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

ship  with  an  experienced  broker,  who  saw  that  he  could 
make  the  large  and  influential  acquaintanceship  of  Mr. 
Brooks  available.  The  hitter's  rise  was  steady,  and  some- 
what rapid.  Everything  he  touched  turned  to  gold,  and 
he  became  one  of  the  most  fortunate  of  brokers  and  specu- 
lators. Eventually  the  establishment  of  the  Bank  of , 

the  most  active  of  the  projectors  of  which  Mr.  Brooks  had 
l"<n,  called  him  to  the  post  of  bank  president,  in  which 
post  he  displayed  rare  abilities.  But  his  financial  cares  so 
multiplied — he  was  called  to  engage  in  so  many  operations 
all  over  the  land,  in  fact,  —  that  he  became  a  slave  to  his 
own  fortune,  and  never  left  the  city,  save  to  go  where 
business  called  him, —  sometimes  West,  but  more  frequent- 
ly South.  His  family  went  to  Saratoga,  or  the  White  Sul- 
phur Springs  of  Virginia,  or  where  else  they  pleased,  to 
pass  a  few  weeks  of  the  summers,  but  he  could  never  "  find 
time/'  So  it  was  that  he  had  not  visited  his  native  hills 
for  so  many  years,  and  had  almost  forgotten  the  playmates 
of  his  boyhood,  and  with  them  his  dear  old  relative  and 
friend,  Mr.  Savage. 

It  can  easily  be  conjectured  that  when  he  found  himself 
again  with  the  most  intimate  friend  of  his  childhood,  in  the 
\  '-rv  house  (though  it  had  been  much  repaired  and  changed 
since  he  had  seen  it)  where  he  had  spent  so  many  days, 
and  even  weeks,  in  each  of  several  years  of  his  early  life, 
the  old  affections  came  back  to  him,  with  emotions  intensi- 
fied by  the  very  fact  that  so  much  that  was  dear  had  so 
long  been  buried  from  his  sight,  and  memory  almost,  in  the 
mad  whirl  of  business  in  which  he  had  won  his  successes. 
'iort,  the  latter's  brilliance  only  served  to  make  more 
bright  and  vivid  the  sweetness  and  riches  of  the  old  mem- 
ories ;  and  to  attempt  to  draw  the  picture  here  which  Mr. 
Brooks  made  for  me  when  I  first  formed  his  acquaintance, 
of  his  sadness  and  his  happiness  at  that  meeting  with  Mr. 
Sava-v.  would  be  preposterous  for  me,  for  he  painted  it  in 
words  which  then  brought  tears  to  my  eyes. 

Ife  spent  a  few  days  with  Mr.  Savage,  and  they  rode 


FEARFUL  DREAM  OF  OLD  MR. BROOKS 


THE   STRANGE   VISION.  549 

about  over  the  familiar  hills;  on  cloudy  days  tried  the 
trout  brooks,  but  without  their  early  success ;  wandered 
off  to  old  farm-houses  where  they  used  to  "  attend  parties,*' 
and  to  and  from  which  they  used  to  escort  the  girls;  and, 
in  fact,  lived  over  their  young  days  together  quite  glee- 
fully. But  it  was  not  alone  for  old  memories'  sake  that 
Mr.  Brooks  lingered  there.  He  had  made  an  observation 
the  minute  he  arrived  at  Mr.  Savage's  which  constantly 
impressed  him.  Mr.  Brooks  had  only  a  family  of  daughters 
living.  He  had  lost  two  sons,  —  one  in  the  South  and  one 
in  New  York,  —  the  latter  of  whom  having  grown  to  nine- 
teen years  of  age  he  had  set  his  heart  upon,  had  educated 
him  at  Columbia  College,  and  was  about  to  send  him  to 
Germany  to  add  to  his  education,  intending  him  for  the 
bar,  or  for  financial  business,  as  the  son  might  decide  on 
his  return,  when  the  young  man,  one  day,  was  run  over 
by  a  horse,  which,  breaking  away  from  his  carriage,  dashed 
across  the  sidewalk  unexpectedly  to  everybody  near,  and 
injuring  several  persons  slightly  or  severely,  so  crushed 
and  trampled  upon  young  George,  the  son,  that  after 
months  of  intense  suffering,  from  internal  Avounds  especi- 
ally, he  died. 

Mr.  Brooks  had  never  been  fully  his  old  self  after  the 
death  of  his  son ;  and  though  some  years  had  passed  since 
the  mournful  accident,  Mrs.  Brooks  was  frequently  awaked 
at  night  by  her  husband's  talking  in  his  dreams  about,  and 
often  as  if  with,  George.  So  he,  too,  frequently  fell  asleep 
in  his  chair  after  a  weary  day's  work,  and  muttered  in  his 
sleep  about  George ;  and  on  one  occasion,  after  being 
awakened  from  what  was  to  Mrs.  Brooks  evidently  a  fear- 
ful dream,  in  which  she  stood  over  him  and  witnessed  his 
agony  for  a  moment  before  she  aroused  him,  he,  in  response 
to  her  importunity,  related  the  dream,  the  substance  of 
which  was,  that  while,  when  he  first  fell  into  a  drowse 
he  was  enjoying  visions  of  rural  life  and  domestic  felicity, 
in  the  midst  of  which  George,  sitting  in  an  easy-chair,  and 


550  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

caressed  by  a  young  maiden,  or  perhaps  his  youthful  wife, 
was  revealed  to  him. 

So  blissful  were  these  visions  (which  of  course  to  him 
were  realities),  that  he  had  just  resolved  to  abandon  the 
sickening  struggle  of  business,  go  to  the  country  and  lead 
a  quiet  life,  when  all  at  once  the  scene  changed  !  and  down 
through  the  very  centre  of  the  beautiful  panorama  of  bliss, 
came,  half-wrapped  in  clouds,  a  hideous-faced,  naked  demon, 
bearing  a  great  bag  of  gold  in  each  hand,  one  marked 
"  100,000,"  the  other  "  1,000,000,"  as  if  to  tempt  him  to 
longer  continue  in  the  money-getting  service  of  Satan,  and 
to  peril  his  soul  the  more !  and  what  added  to  the  horror 
of  all  was,  that  just  then  George  was  represented  as  leaving 
his  seat  of  bliss,  seizing  his  hat,  and  rushing  down  into  the 
lower  plane,  grasping  at  imaginary  bags  of  gold  which  just 
eluded  his  clutch,  his  face  covered  with  the  greed  of 
gain ;  and  it  gave  him  the  greatest  pangs  to  see  his  dar- 
ling boy  fall  from  so  high  an  estate  to  one  so  low.  It  was 
while  in  the  agony  of  these  pangs  in  which  he  wildly  threw 
up  his  arms,  as  if  struggling  to  get  up  and  go  forth  to  save 
George,  that  Mrs.  Brooks  awakened  him. 

It  was,  as  it  will  be  seen,  a  terrible  blow  to  Mr.  Brooks, 
the  death  of  that  son,  who,  he  confidently  hoped,  would 
t;ike  and  fill,  or  more  than  fill,  his  place  in  business.  He 
doted  upon  him  more,  perhaps,  than  he  otherwise  would 
have  done  had  he  not  been  the  only  son  in  a  family  of  half 
a  dozen  children.  The  daughters  would  need  his  aid  and 
counsel,  and  of  this  the  father  thought  much.  It  was  an 
unspeakable  and  irremediable  loss  to  Mr.  Brooks.  He  had 
frequently  thought  to  adopt  some  young  man,  or  dreamed 
that  some  of  his  daughters  might  marry  some  man  after  his 
own  heart ;  but  looking  around,  he  never  found  a  young 
man  for  adoption  who  suited  him. 

He  had  relinquished  the  hope  that  he  might  yet  en- 
counter somebody  to  his  tastes  when  he  came  to  Mr. 
Ravage's  home ;  and  when  the  fresh,  fair,  well-formed, 
keen,  but  gentle-eyed,  and  firm  of  lip,  Leonard,  with  his 


STUDYING   CHARACTER.  551 

fine,  bared  brow,  ran  out  with  his  father  and  family  to  greet 
the  just-arrived  relations,  who  sent  word  of  their  coming 
the  day  before,  Mr.  Brooks's  eyes  gathered  new  lustre  to 
themselves  as  he  looked  upon  him,  and  discovered  the 
strong  resemblance  of  Leonard  to  his  favorite  child  George  ; 
and  the  impression  then  made  upon  his  mind  was  deepened 
as  Mrs.  Brooks,  taking  her  husband  aside  an  hour  after 
their  arrival,  spoke  to  him  in  low  words,  and  with  tears  in 
her  eyes :  — 

"Have  you  not  noticed  how  like  our  dear  George  is 
Leonard  Savage?  I  noticed  it  the  instant  I  met  him,  amd 
I  can't  keep  my  eyes  off  from  him;  and  he  acts  just  as 
George  used  to,  too,"  she  added. 

Mr.  Brooks  told  her  that  he  had  remarked  the  resem- 
blance ;  "  but,"  said  he,  "  please  do  not  tell  him,  or  the 
family,  or  our  girls  of  it,  for  I  have  already  resolved  to 
study  the  young  man  while  I  am  here,  and  I  shall  not  pay 
him  too  much  attention.  I  wish  to  see  him  as  he  usually 
is.  I  wish  you  would  watch  him  carefully,  too,  without 
letting  him  know  it." 

Mrs.  Brooks,  of  course,  consented  to  her  husband's  sensi- 
ble wishes  (and  wives  should  never  consent  to  unsensible 
ones),  arid  they  watched  Leonard  with  great  care,  only  to 
become  more  and  more  attracted  to  him  day  by  day. 
Sometimes  Mr.  Brooks  and  he  took  the  old  horse  and  car- 
riage and  rode  away  long  distances  together.  During 
these  journeys  Mr.  Brooks  was  sounding  the  mind  and 
character  of  Leonard,  talking  to  him  of  the  world  and  the 
men  in  it ;  of  what  he  had  seen  and  learned  in  Europe ;  of 
the  modes  of  doing  business  in  New  York ;  of  his  old  ac- 
quaintances, some  of  whom  had  achieved  honors  and  for- 
tune, and  how  they  had  lived ;  others  of  whom  had  made 
shipwreck  of  themselves,  earlier  or  later  in  life,  and  so  on, 
only  to  find  that  Leonard  had  a  wondrously  appreciative 
and  grasping  mind,  and  seemed  to  be  perfectly  well- 
grounded  morally.  The  personal  beauty,  too,  of  Leonard, 
and  his  excellent  colloquial  powers,  charmed  Mr.  Brooks. 


552  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

He  found  himself,  after  a  few  days,  wholly  in  love  with 
Leonard,  and  as  his  wife's  judgment  of  the  young  man  cor- 
responded with  his  own,  he  felt  increased  confidence  in 
Leonard  ;  for  Mr.  Brooks  was  one  of  those  men  who,  fortu- 
nate in  the  possession  of  noble  and  sensible  wives,  know 
how  to  appreciate  them.  Mr.  Brooks  always  told  his  wife 
his  important  business,  and  never  took  any  great  step, 
when  there  was  time  enough  to  do  so,  without  consulting 
her.  But  men  who  do  business  in  Wall  Street  are  some- 
times called  on  to  act  on  the  instant,  in  matters  which  in« 
volve  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars. 

The  Brooks  family  remained  several  days  at  Mr.  Sav* 
age's,  and  not  only  convinced  themselves  of  Leonard's  per- 
fect goodness  and  great  capacities,  but  of  the  worthiness 
of  the  whole  of  Mr.  Savage's  family;  and  it  can  readily  be 
conjectured  that,  at  this  early  time  even,  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Brooks,  who  had  a  daughter'of  the  same  age  as  Leonard, 
and  other  daughters  a  little  younger,  might  have  looked 
forward  to  an  alliance  for  one  of  them  with  a  young  man 
so  good  and  of  so  much  promise  in  the  world.  The  chil- 
dren, too,  of  Mr.  Brooks  became  fond  of  "  cousin  Leonard," 
as,  in  their  caprices,  they  called  him,  and  attache^  to  the 
whole  family,  especially  to  old  Mr.  Savage,  their  father's 
time-old  friend,  who  was  one  of  those  straightforward,  se- 
verely honest,  intelligent,  but  at  the  same  time  fun-loving, 
jocular  persons,  whose  magnetism  is  contagious,  and  makes 
everybody  around  them  "  feel  better." 

A  day  or  two  before  his  departure  from  Mr.  Savage's 
for  the  mountains,  Mr.  Brooks  took  a  long  ride  with  Leon- 
ard, in  which  he  talked  much  with  him  about  life,  its  cares, 
toils,  and  struggles,  its  successes  and  disappointments ; 
the  value  of  the  education  of  the  schools,  and  that  of  the 
arena  of  business,  etc.,  and  finally  told  him  how  he  had  been 
considering  him,  and  what  projects  he  had  been  forming  in 
his  mind  for  him  business-wise.  Mr.  Brooks  shed  many 
tears  as  he  told  Leonard  of  his  resemblance  to  his  own 


TORTURES   ESCAPED.  553 

dear  George,  and  Leonard,  too,  was  greatly  affected,  and 
could  hardly  utter  a  word. 

Leonard  was  unwilling  to  give  up  his  proposed  collegi- 
ate course ;  but  Mr.  Brooks  assured  him  that  he  was  al- 
ready superior  in  scholarship  to  the  great  majority  of  the 
country's  most  successful  business  men,  and  pointed  out 
to  him  how  many  brilliant  young  men  of  real  merit  there 
are  in  the  legal  profession  (to  which  Leonard  inclined),  as 
well  as  in  the  medical  and  clerical,  who  can  make  but  poor 
shift  in  the  world ;  who  do  riot  succeed ;  and  he  pointed  out 
to  him  the  advantage  of  stepping  at  once  into  an  established 
business,  where  the  course  of  his  life  would  be  free  from 
the  heart-racking  trials  and  tortures  through  which  these 
men  are  compelled  to  pass. 

Mr.  Brooks  told  Leonard  that  he  would  place  him  in 
business,  where  an  honest  course  would  be  sure  to  win 
him  great  fortune  in  the  end ;  that  he  had  profound  con- 
fidence, from  what  he  had  seen  of  him,  in  his  moral  nature, 
and  that  he  would,  in  short,  take  him  at  once  into  business 
with  him,  give  him  a  small  interest  and  a  salary  besides, 
till  he  arrived  at  age,  and  then,  if  all  things  proved,  as  he 
believed  they  would,  would  give  him  a  large  interest  in 
his  business.  "  Besides,"  he  said,  "  meanwhile  my  house 
shall  be  your  home,  and  as  much  yours  as  if  you  were 
really  my  boy." 

Leonard  was  overwhelmed  with  Mr.  Brooks's  kind  offers, 
and  expressed  his  fears  that  he  had  not  the  capacity  to 
fill  the  place  Mr.  Brooks  wished  him  to  occupy.  But  Mr. 
Brooks  would  not  hear  to  this  at  all ;  and  finally  Leonard 
said  he  could  take  no  such  important  step  without  consult- 
ing his  father  and  mother,  which  only  seemed  to  increase 
Mr.  Brooks's  respect  for  him  ;  and  it  was  arranged  that  that 
night  Mr.  and  Mrs.  B.  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  S.  and  Leonard 
should  have  a  conference,  either  sending  the  "  girls " 
and  "  children "  off  to  bed  early,  or  managing  to  take 
a  walk  by  themselves.  Night  came,  and  it  was  very 
beautiful.  Mr.  Brooks  proposed  that  Mr.  S.  and  wife,  and 

22 


554  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

himself  and  wife,  should  take  an  evening  stroll  over  to  an 
old  farm-house,  where  lived  some  goodly  neighbors,  and 
make  them  a  parting  call,  and  told  Leonard  to  "  come 
over  "  at  such  a  time. 

On  their  way  home  they  stopped  under  some  grand  old 
trees,  where  there  were  rude  seats  for  the  accommodation 
of  travellers,  and  there,  in  the  moonlight,  talked  over  the 
matter.  Mr.  Savage  was  surprised  at  Mr.  Brooks's  gener- 
ous offers.  He  hardly  knew  what  to  do.  He  had  hoped 
that  Leonard  would  go  to  college,  and  finally  determine  to 
enter  the  ministry.  This  was  his  highest  ambition  for 
him.  His  own  brother  Leonard,  after  whom  the  young 
man  was  named,  was  a  minister  of  much  promise,  but  who 
became  ill  early  in  his  ministry,  and  died  after  a  long 
period  of  sickness  and  infirmity,  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
nine. 

Mr.  Savage  had  looked  to  his  son  fondly  to  "  do  his  un- 
accomplished work,"  as  he  expressed  it  (his  brother's),  for 
Mr.  Savage  was  of  that  class  of  men  who  feel  that  their 
families  —  their  "  name  "  —  must  do  about  so  much  "  work 
for  the  Lord  in  His  vineyard,"  at  any  rate,  and  he  was  loath 
to  have  Leonard  relinquish  collegiate  education.  He  said 
he  was  not  rich,  but  could  provide  comfortably  enough  for 
Leonard ;  and  besides,  he  had  a  great  dread  to  have  Leonard 
go  so  far  from  home,  especially  to  New  York,  so  young. 
Ho  had  never  been  in  New  York,  but  he  had  often  visited 
Boston,  and  felt  that  a  city  was  not  the  place  for  young 
men.  But  Mr.  Brooks  told  him  that  New  York  contained 
the  best,  as  well  as  the  worst  people  in  the  world  ;  that 
idleness  was  the  bane  of  young  men,  either  in  town  or 
city,  and  referred  him  to  many  young  men  whom  they 
knew  in  their  boyhood,  and  of  whom  Mr.  Savage  had  told 
him  on  that  visit,  that  they  had  made  wreck  of  themselves 
in  the  country,  some  having  gone  down  to  drunkards' 
graves,  etc. ;  that  Leonard  would,  at  once,  have  all  ho 
could  do,  and  perhaps  more ;  that  he  would  directly  enter 
upon  a  stern,  and  not  a  little  laborious  life,  but  that  his 


SURPRISED   UNPLEASANTLY.  555 

great  success  would  be  sure  ;  that  be  would  watcb  over 
Leonard  with  a  father's  care,  etc. 

Mrs.  Savage  cried,  and  Mr.  S.  persisted  in  his  objec- 
tions. Finally,  Mr.  Brooks  told  him  that  if  he  would  give 
his  consent,  he  would  watch  Leonard  carefully,  and  that 
if  he  discovered  the  least  thing  to  excite  his  suspicions 
that  Leonard  was  in  any  way  unfitted  for  the  course  of 
life  in  which  he  wished  to  place  him,  he  would  send  him 
back  to  his  father,  and  that,  in  the  meanwhile,  Leonard 
would  have  earned  some  money  for  himself,  and  that  then 
he  would  not  be  too  old  to  go  to  college ;  "  for,"  said  he, 
"  a  year's  trial  will  decide  all." 

This  was  a  new  suggestion  to  Leonard,  and  he  caught 
at  it,  and  added  his  importunities  to  Mr.  Brooks's  ;  for  he 
saw  the  brilliant  prospect  before  him  if  he  proved  himself 
capable,  and  it  was  Mr.  Brooks's  own  proposal  that  he  go 
on  trial.  So,  after  much  further  conversation,  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Savage  consented,  and  the  parties  returned  to  the 
house. 

Mr.  Brooks  was  so  delighted  that  he  could  hardly  con- 
tain himself,  and  insisted  that  Leonard  should  go  with  him 
and  his  family  next  day  to  the  mountains.  To  this  Leon- 
ard demurred,  for  he  knew  that  fashionable  people  resorted 
there,  and  he  had  not,  he  said,  a  proper  suit  of  clothes. 
He  was  having  some  made  preparatory  to  going  to  col- 
lege, but  they  were  not  done.  "Mr.  Brooks  gently  laughed 
at  this ;  told  him  he  was  well  enough  dressed  now ;  that 
it  was  not  his  clothes,  but  him,  that  he  wanted  with  him. 

But  it  was  finally  arranged  that  Leonard  should  visit 
Boston,  and  provide  himself  with  a  ready-made  suit,  and 
follow  the  family  in  two  or  three  days.  Mr.  Brooks,  know- 
ing a  certain  clothing-house  in  Boston,  told  Leonard  to  go 
there,  and  nowhere  else ;  and  after  Leonard  had  selected 
his  suit,  judge  of  his  surprise,  when  the  clerk,  asking  his 
name,  in  order  to  make  out  the  bill,  presented  it  to  Leonard, 
subscribed,  "  Payment  received  in  full,"  as  Leonard  was 
drawing  his  wallet  to  pay  for  the  goods. 


556  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

"  But  what  does  this  mean  ?  "  said  Leonard,  as,  taking 
the  bill,  he  handed  the  clerk  the  money,  which  was  re- 
fused. 

"  I  am  not  able  to  tell  you  more  than  that  I  had  orders 
to  hand  you  the  bill  receipted,  and  to  refuse  any  money  you 
might  offer,"  said  the  clerk,  as  he  started  to  go  to  do  some- 
thing needing  then  to  be  done. 

"  But  stop,  sir,"  said  Leonard  ;  "  I  cannot  receive  this 
compliment  from  your  house.  I  must  know  what  it 
means." 

At  this  point  one  of  the  proprietors,  seeing  that  Leonard 
was  confounded,  stepped  up,  motioned  the  clerk  away  to 
his  duties,  and  said,  — 

"  Allow  me  to  ask  what  is  the  trouble  ?  " 

"  No  '  trouble/  indeed,"  said  Leonard,  "  but  this :  I've 
bought  a  suit  of  clothes,  for  which  I  wish  to  pay,  and  the 
clerk  won't  let  me,  and  has  given  me  the  receipted  bill." 

The  proprietor  reached  out  his  hand  for  it,  looked  at  it 
for  an  instant,  and  said,  — 

"  Is  this  your  name  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sir." 

"  Then  the  bill  seems  to  be  correctly  made  out." 

"  Yes.  sir." 

"  Well,  I  am  one  of  the  proprietors  of  this  house,  — 
would  you  prefer  me  to  receipt  the  bill,  rather  than  that 
it  be  done  in  our  name  by  a  clerk —  is  that  it?" 

Of  course  Leonard  was  astonished  at  the  query. 

"  Why,  no,  sir,"  said  he ;  "I  suppose  this  is  as  correct 
as  it  can  be,  as  far  as  the  signature  is  concerned,  but  I  am 
astonished  that  you  won't  take  my  money." 

"  Well,  we  do  refuse  to,  and  shall  be  greatly  obliged  to 
you  if  you  will  take  the  suit  along  with  you.  You  will 
have  no  trouble  in  the  future  about  it,  and  I  am  not  at  lib- 
erty to  explain  the  matter  to  you.  All  I  can  say  is,  it  is 
all  right ;  we  are  satisfied,  and  should  be  glad  of  your  cus- 
tom when  you  wish  anything  in  our  line." 

Leonard  left  the  store  confused,  unable  to  conjecture 


A   PRIZE  FOUND.  557 

what  it  meant,  for  he  had  no  suspicion  of  the  fact,  after- 
wards  disclosed  to  him,  a  year  from  then,  that  Mr.  Brooks 
had  written  a  private  letter  to  the  house,  enclosing  a  draft 
on  a  New  York  bank,  telling  the  house  to  let  such  a  young 
man,  whom  he  accurately  described,  and  who  would  be 
there  in  a  day  or  two,  have  the  goods,  and  they  could 
settle  the  difference  between  amount  of  draft  and  cost  of 
goods  thereafter.  Of  course  he  enjoined  entire  secrecy ; 
hence  it  was  that  the  proprietor  was  "  not  at  liberty  to 
explain." 

Mr.  Brooks  intended  this  as  a  pleasant  surprise  upon 
Leonard,  but  it  didn't  prove  so.  He  was  more  or  less 
harassed  by  it  till  he  came  to  know  the  facts.  He  was 
one  of  those  independent,  self-reliant  souls,  who  rather  go 
without  this  or  that  than  receive  it  from  patronizing  hands  ; 
and  as  he  did  not  even  suspect  this  as  Mr.  Brooks's  work, 
and  as  old  Mr.  Savage,  when  Leonard  came  to  tell  him  of 
the  occurrence,  was  equally  unsuspecting,  Leonard  was  a 
little  vexed. 

Mr.  Brooks  had  been  so  long  away  they  did  not  con- 
ceive that  he  had  acquaintances  in  Boston ;  and  moreover 
they  knew  that  he  had  not  been  near  the  post  office  of  the 
village  while  he  was  there,  or  Lad  they  suspected  him 
they  would  have  thought  of  that,  and  been  puzzled.  But 
Mr.  Brooks  had  been  wary,  and  without  going  to  the  post 
office  himself,  sent  his  daughter  out  to  walk,  and  deposit 
the  letter,  and  told  her  to  say  nothing  about  it,  and  to 
show  its  superscription  to  no  one. 

Leonard  followed  the  family  in  his  new  but  plain  suit, 
for  he  had  not  been  extravagant.  His  fine  form  needed 
no  adornment,  and  the  visitors  at  the  mountains  that  sea- 
son hardly  knew  which  to  admire  the  most,  his  frank, 
handsome  face,  his  Apollo-like  form,  or  his  gentle,  kind- 
ly manners.  Of  course  Mr.  Brooks  was  very  proud  of 
him,  and  was  never  so  happy  as  when  talking  to  the  peo- 
ple he  met  of  the  prize  he  had  found  "  up  among  the 
granite  hilhs."  He  spoke  of  Leonard  as  his  u  clerk,"  and 


558  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

was,  in  short,  a  particle  silly  in  the  expression  of  his  priclt 
over  Leonard ;  and  Mrs.  Brooks  was  not  far  behind  him. 
So  that  the  gossiping  portion  of  the  visitors  to  the  moun- 
tains, when  they  met,  began  to  whisper  it  abo*nt  that  it 
was  "  easy  enough  to  be  seen  "  that  Mr.  Brooks  was  arrang- 
ing an  alliance  for  his  daughter,  and  they  were  very  sure 
it  was  the  next  to  the  oldest ;  and  before  the  Brookses  left 
the  mountains,  these  gossipers  were  certain  of  it ;  and, 
as  they  observed  the  quiet,  modest,  and  reserved  appear- 
ance of  the  beautiful  Isabella,  they  construed  her  silence 
into  her  non-concurrence  with  the  supposed  plan,  and 
Mrs.  Brooks  overheard  some  of  them  bewailing  the  condi- 
tion of  her  daughter,  declaring  it  was  "  too  bad  to  com- 
pel a  girl  to  marry  against  her  will ;  "  that  although  Leon- 
ard was  so  beautiful,  and  all  that,  yet  it  was  not  right  to 
compel  the  girl  to  marry  him,  and  the  Brookses  "  ought 
to  be  ashamed  of  it."  Little  did  they  know  what  at  the 
same  time  was  going  on  in  Isabella's  heart,  and  as  little 
foresaw  what  the  future,  not  years  distant,  was  to  de- 
velop in  the  happiness  and  joy  of  the  Brooks  and  Savage 
families.  Ah,  and  much  less  could  they  then  have  conjec- 
tured of  the  terrible  reverses — the  inexpressible  suffer- 
ings, which  were  to  come  to  some,  indeed  all,  of  those  then 
happy  households. 

The  season  over,  Mr.  Brooks  and  family  returned  to  New 
York,  making  but  a  day  or  two's  call  at  Mr.  Savage's, 
where  it  was  arranged  that  Leonard  should  follow  them  in 
a  month,  and  then  set  out  for  Boston,  where  Mr.  Brooks 
called  on  the  clothing-house,  and  received  the  balance  due 
on  his  draft. 

"  That  young  man,"  said  the  proprietor,  who  had  had  the 
conversation  with  Leonard,  "  is  a  splendid  fellow  to  look 
upon,  and  I  liked  his  manners.  I've  thought  ever  rince 
he  was  here  I  would  like  to  get  his  services  in  our  store  — 
if  I  could.  Do  you  think  he  could  be  induced  to  come  to 
Boston  ?  We'd  do  well  by  him  —  give  him  a  fair  trial  — 
he  would  have  nothing  to  complain  of." 


THE  GREAT  GRIEF  FORESHADOWED.      559 

"  Then  you  like  him  ?  What  struck  you  most  in  his  ap- 
pearance ?  " 

"  Well,  he's  intelligent  and  handsome,  that  everybody 
can  see  ;  but  what  I  liked  most,  was  his  honest,  open  face. 
I  think  he's  perfectly  reliable  —  a  tiling  I  can  say  of  but 
few  of  the  clerks  our  house  ever  had." 

Mr.  Brooks  was  delighted  with  this  estimation  of  Leon- 
ard by  a  shrewd,  keen-sighted  business  man,  and  re- 
plied,— 

"You've  judged  the  young  man  rightly,  I  think;  but 
you  cannot  secure  his  services.  A  business  is  already 
provided  for  him.  Were  it  not  for  that,  I  might  try  to  get 
him  into  your  employ." 

Soon  after  Mr.  Brooks  left  the  store  ;  and,  of  course,  the 
first  thing  he  told  Mrs.  Brooks  on  entering  the  Revere 
House,  where  they  were  stopping,  was  what  the  merchant 
had  said  about  Leonard,  and  the  daughters  all  heard  it  too. 

But  I  must  cut  this  part  of  the  story  short,  for  I  find  my 
personal  regard  for  Leonard  is  leading  me  to  dilate  upon 
those  points  which  are  not  so  exactly  connected  with  the 
detective's  business ;  and  I  have  gone  over  the  substance 
of  Mr.  Brooks's  narrative  to  me  of  the  past,  in  such  de- 
tail, in  order  to  give  the  reader  some  adequate  notion  of 
the  intensity  of  the  grief  which  came  upon  the  Brooks 
family,  and  to  show  how  the  extremest  innocence  and  the 
most  lofty  honor  may  sometimes  suffer  under  false  charges, 
—  the  designs  of  the  base  and  vile  for  their  own  mean  ends ; 
or,  as  in  this  case,  through  the  conspiracy  of  circumstances, 
the  solution  of  which  necessarily  involves  the  innocent 
sometimes. 

Leonard  went  to  New  York  in  due  time,  and  was  taken 
into  Mr.  B.'s  family  as  a  member,  and  duly  installed  in  Mr. 
B.'s  business,  first  as  clerk,  Mr.  Brooks  advancing  him 
little,  by  little,  as  he  saw  fit. 

A  year  rolled  round,  and  Leonard  visited  his  country 
home,  and  Mr.  Brooks  had  no  occasion  to  "  release  "  him 
in  that  he  loved  him ;  and  all  the  family  loved  him ;  and 


560  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

there  was  one  of  them  who  more  than  loved  him,  Isabella  ; 
but  so  gentle  and  undemonstrative  had  she  been,  that 
Leonard  did  not  know  it;  and  he  regarded  all  the  girls 
as  his  sisters,  and  was  kind,  and  gentle,  and  cheerful  to 
them  all  alike.  Still,  sometimes  he  thought  he  "  liked  " 
(for  he  never  thought  of  "  love  "  towards  any  of  them,  save 
in  the  kindly,  friendly  sense),  Isabella,  in  particular,  the 
best. 

When  he  returned  there  was  rejoicing  in  the  Brooks' 
house,  and  all  went  on  smoothly.  These  things  proceeded 
till  Leonard  became  of  age,  and  Mr.  Brooks  at  once  took 
him  into  full  partnership,  giving  him  outright  an  interest 
sufficient  to  make  him  wealthy.  Leonard  had  not  forgot- 
ten his  love  of  books,  and  occupied  most  of  hie  leisure 
hours  at  his  happy  home,  reading  to  the  family.  Thus  he 
was  storing  his  mind,  and  fitting  himself  for  greater  use- 
fulness. 

So  fashionable  a  family  as  the  Brookses,  had  necessarily 
been  called  into  society  much,  and  had  given  many  parties 
themselves,  but  they  gradually  lost  their  interest  in  those 
things  after  Leonard  came ;  and  as  Mr.  Brooks  saw  the  ad- 
vantage of  which  his  reading  and  studential  habits  would 
be  to  his  daughters,  he  encouraged  their  more  quiet  life. 
In  short,  Leonard  became  indispensable  to  that  household, 
and  lived  there  as  a  brother  and  a  son,  to  whom  they  all 
had  come  to  look  up,  till  his  twenty-fourth  year,  when, 
going  a  little  into  society,  and  meeting  various  ladies, 
whom  he  admired,  he  began  to  conceive  the  thought  of 
marriage  ;  but  he  found  none  who,  in  comparison  with  the 
young  ladies  at  home,  he  thought  equal  to  them,  especially 
to  one  of  them,  the  gentle  Isabella,  who  was  also  a  very 
good  scholar,  and  had  studied  a  great  deal  since  Leonard 
became  a  member  of  the  family.  He  dwelt  upon  the  matter 
very  much.  Isabella  was  almost  a  sister,  indeed.  He 
felt  a  delicacy  about  revealing  his  affections ;  but  at  last  he 
did,  and  the  tears  of  Isabella  revealed  her  only  too  great 
joy. 


A  FATAL  DAY.  5G1 

They  made  their  story  known  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Brooks, 
who,  in  their  gladness,  would  have  had  them  marry  the  very 
next  day.  Mr.  Brooks  said  that  any  delay  under  the  cir- 
cumtances  was  absurd  ;  that  he  did  not  care  for  formalities, 
and  wanted  to  make  no  show.  But  Mrs.  Brooks's  pride 
took  another  direction.  She  wanted  time  to  make  a  great 
wedding,  and  Mr.  Brooks  yielded.  The  wedding  came, 
and  passed  all  happily,  and  Leonarc^ Savage  and  Isabella 
Brooks  were  united  for  a  happy  life,  to  be  checkered,  how- 
ever, by  great  misery  to  them  both.  They  remained  with 
Mr.  Brooks's  family  for  a  year,  when  they  moved  into  a 
new  house  which  Mr.  Brooks  had  erected  meanwhile,  and 
given  to  Isabella,  and  time  went  on  ;  children  were  born 
to  them,  mnd  happy  grandparents  lived  over  their  lives, 
again  in  the  smiles  of  their  loving  grandchildren. 

Meanwhile  Mr.  Brooks  changed  his  business  somewhat, 
and  founding  a  bank,  he  became  president  of  it,  and  along 
with  him  went  Leonard,  as  chief  clerk,  his  property,  now 
sufficient  for  his  support  in  style,  being  invested  in  vari- 
ous paying  stocks.  He  went  more  as  a  companion  for  old 
Mr.  Brooks,  than  to  fill  a  position  for  the  sake  of  its  salary ; 
and  as  Mr.  Brooks  had  a  dear  friend,  who,  in  his  old  age 
had  become  ruined  in  Wall  Street,  it  was  arranged  that  he 
should  be  cashier  so  long  as  he  might  desire,  or  might 
live,  and  that  Mr.  Savage  should  succeed  him,  if  he  so- 
desired.  But  Mr.  Savage  was  Mr.  Brooks's  confiden- 
tial clerk  in  all  respects,  and  was  intrusted  with  every- 
thing. 

All  things  went  on  happily  and  smoothly  for  a  year  and 
a  half,  till  a  certain  fatal  day  arrived.  The  day  before, 
Mr.  Savage,  who,  in  all  the  long  time  he  had  been  with 
Mr.  Brooks,  never  drew  out  at  any  time  from  the  concern 
but  a  portion  of  his  dues,  told  Mr.  Brooks  that  he  had  be- 
come embarrassed  a  little  through  the  decline  of  a  certain 
stock,  which  was  sure,  however,  to  come  up  again,  and  that 
he  wanted  a  thousand  dollars  for  current  expenses ;  and 
unwilling  to  sell  any  stock  he  held,  and  not  wiling  to  ask 
33  22* 


562  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

anybody  else  to  loan  him,  was  obliged  to  ask  of  him  a  favor. 
Mr.  Brooks  smiled  at  the  matter,  gave  him  the  money  at 
once,  and  in  a  manner  of  half  reproof,  and  half  joke,  said, 
"  Leonard,  what  made  you  think  I'd  lend  you  money  ?  I 
won't,  never.  Take  that  as  a  birthday  present  from  me, 
to  reverse  the  order  of  things,  for  to-morrow  is  my  birth- 
day." Leonard  took  the  money,  considering  it  a  loan, 
which  he  should  makgpup  in  a  week. 

The  next  day  was  a  fatal  one  to  the  happiness  of  that 
house,  and  the  one  to  which  all  I  have  written  here  has 
been  pointing.  It  was  noon.  Mr.  Brooks  was  out  of  town, 
the  cashier  had  gone  to  his  dinner,  and  so  the  clerks,  and 
all  but  an  old  negro  messenger,  who  had  been  with  the 
house  since  its  establishment,  and  he  was  dozing  away  in 
his  accustomed  seat,  when  a  man  entered  the  bank  with  a 
draft  for  two  thousand  dollars,  and  something  over  (I  for- 
get the  exact  sum) ;  was  in  haste,  or  such  was  Mr.  Sav- 
age's story ;  got  it  cashed  by  Mr.  Savage,  who  acted  as 
teller  in  the  teller's  absence,  and  cashier  too,  and  made  an 
entry  in  the  books,  and  slipped  the  draft,  as  he  declared, 
into  the  proper  drawer,  preparatory  to  its  being  duly  filed, 
according  to  the  custom  of  the  bank.  That  night  the 
entry  was  found  in  the  books,  but  no  draft  to  correspond 
was  fcund.  Mr.  Savage  was  confounded  ;  the  old  cashier 
said  an  unkind  word  to  toim  about  carelessness,  and  the 
bank  closed  without  the  matter  being  settled. 

Next  day  the  cashier  brought  the  thing  to  Mr.  Brooks's 
notice  before  Mr.  Savage  came  in ;  and  the  old  cashier  pre- 
sumed, on  his  intimacy  with  Mr.  Brooks,  to  say  that  the 
affair  "  looked  bad."  The  illness  of  one  of  Mr.  Savage's  chil- 
dren delayed  him  an  hour  or  two  beyond  the  usual  time 
of  arriving  at  the  bank,  and  this  added  to  Mr.  Brooks's 
uneasiness,  not  knowing  the  cause.  Moreover,  there 
•flashed  into  his  mind,  what  had  been  forgotten  for  nearly 
thirty  years,  the  mournful  history  of  the  latter  life  of  a 
man  in  the  South,  whom  he  once  knew,  and  who,  in  the 
midst  of  happiest  surroundings,  and  after  having  enjoyed 


DEEP   PERPLEXITY.  563 

everybody's  confidence  for  a  period  of  over  forty  years, 
proved  at  last  a  villain. 

Mr.  Brooks  deemed  this  man's  name  coming  back,  as  it 
did,  —  he  knew  not  how, — to  memory,  as  a  sort  of  provi- 
dential presentation  of  light  upon  the  matter  in  ques- 
tion ;  and,  by  the  deep  degree  of  his  affection  for  his  son- 
in  law,  his  suspicions  became  intense,  as  he  afterwards 
explained  it.  By  the  time  Leonard  Savage  got  to  the 
bank,  Mr.  Brooks  was  in  the  mood  to  believe  almost  any- 
thing of  him.  Ho  remembered,  too,  that  he  was  embar- 
rassed the  day  before,  and  he  had  given  him  a  thousand 
dollars.  How  did  he  know  but  he  wanted  more  thou- 
sands ?  What  had  he  done  with  his  money? 

When'Mr.  Savage  arrived,  Mr.  Brooks,  with  a  frown  on 
his  face,  invited  him  into  the  directors'  room,  shut  the 
door,  and  asked  him  to  explain  about  that  draft.  Mr.  Sav- 
age told  him  the  whole  simple  story,  quietly;  expressed 
his  great  regret  at  his  stupidity;  said  he  knew  he  must  have 
—  in  fact,  he  knew  as  well  as  he  knew  anything — put 
the  draft  in  such  a  place  ;  that  it  was  drawn  by  such  a 
bank  in  the  country  (a  familiar  one,  often  doing  business 
with  them) ;  was  all  right,  etc.,  and  that  he  and  the  clerks 
had  hunted  high  and  low,  and  it  was  not  to  be  found  the 
day  before.  Mr.  Savage  was  secretly  annoyed  at  Mr. 
Brooks's  pertinacity  in  the  matter,  and  he  finally  said,  — 

"  Father  Brooks,  of  course  I  propose  that  the  bank  shall 
not  lose  the  money.  The  other  bank  will,  of  course,  recog- 
nize the  fact  of  having  given  the  draft ;  and  now,  as  the 
draft  is  paid  it  is  all  the  same  to  us  if  it  is  lost." 

"Yes,  yes,"  said  Mr.  Brooks;  "that's  all  well  enough. 
I  wonder  why  I've  "not  thought  to  send  word  to  the  other 
bank,  and  find  if  they  have  issued  such  a  draft  on  us."  This 
very  suggestion  piqued  Mr.  Savage's  pride  awfully,  but  ho 
Buffered  the  affront  silently  ;  and  as  the  conversation 
closed,  Mr.  Savage  said,  "  And,  father,  even  if  it  were  a 
forged  draft,  I  should  tell  you  to  have  it  charged  to  me, 


564  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

against  my  stock  and  dividends.  The  bank  shall  not  lose 
for  my  ladi. 

This  suggestion  about  a  forged  draft  struck  Mr.  Brooks 
unpleasantly.  "  What  if  it  should  prove  that  the  bank  has 
made  no  such  draft  on  us  that  day  ?  *'  asked  Mr.  B.  of  him- 
self, as  he  and  Mr.  Savage  parted;  and  he  immediately  de- 
spatched a  messenger  to  the  country  to  find  out  the  facts, 
who.  returning,  said  the  .bank  had  issued  no  such  draft. 
Mr.  Brooks's  suspicions  became  strong  that  Mr.  Savage,  for 
some  inscrutable  reason,  had  done  wrong.  He  did  not  care 
for  the  money,  but  his  confidence  was  shaken  in  him.  He 
would  pay  the  sum  withdrawn,  and  get  rid  of  Mr.  Savage 
as  easily  as  he  could.  This  was  his  purpose;  but  he 
bethought  him,  that  perhaps  somebody  could  unravel  the 
mystery ;  perhaps — but  he  did  not  believe  it — somebody 
had  deceived  Mr.  Savage  with  a  forged  check;  but,  ah  ! 
where  had  that  gone.  "  Perhaps/'  Mr.  Savage  had  thought 
—  well,  he  could  not  solve  it  for  himself,  knew  not  what  to 
think;  and  after  pondering  over  it,  came  to  our  office  (for  I 
then  had  a  partner).  He  revealed  his  case  to  me, — told 
me  the  whole  history  which  I  have  related,  and  far  more, 
and  said  he  had  grown  ten  years  older  within  the  past  two 
weeks.  He  had  said  nothing  yet  to  his  wife  about  it,  and 
thought  he  never  should. 

I  told  him  it  looked  to  me  that  Mr.  Savage  was  an  hon- 
est man,  and  had  been  imposed  upon  with  a  forged  check  ; 
that  possibly,  by  some  connivance  with  the  old  nfegro  mes- 
senger, the  forger  had  repossessed  himself  of  that  check ; 
but  that  that  was  the  most  unlikely  thing  in  the  world.  I 
tried  to  conceive  various  ways  to  account  for  it,  even  to 
supposing  that  Mr.  S.  was  mistaken  as.  to  having  put  the 
draft  in  the  drawer,  but  had  tucked  it,  unthinkingly,  into 
his  vest  pocket,  and  had  lost  it.  But  to  all  I  could  suggest, 
he  had  a  ready  reply;  and  I  told  him  that  I  thought  1'  1 
better  examine  the  premises,  the  drawers,  and  so  forth; 
and  we  arranged  a  private  examination,  —  he  and  1  being 
alone  in  the  bank,  —  whi'-h  was  made. 


"NOT   ONE   HONEST   MAN."  5G5 

I  saw  that  if  the  drawers  were  full,  —  and  it  appeared 
that  on  that  fatal  day  much  business  had  been  done,  and  the 
drawer  was  probably  full, —  a  paper  might  get  out  over  the 
back  end  and  fall  on  the  floor,  and  so  get  lost;  but  this 
suggestion  was  answered  to  my  satisfaction, —  the  greatest 
search  had  been  made  for  the  paper  on  the  afternoon  of 
the  day  it  was  said  to  have  been  presented,  etc.,  and  my 
theory  was  thus  precluded.  After  a  few  conferences,  I 
finally  yielded  to  Mr.  Brooks's  opinion,  that  Mr.  Savage  was 
guilty  of  having  taken  the  money,  and  trumped  up  the 
silly  story  for  his  defence  ;  and  yet  it  was  all  so  absurd  an 
act  in  one  situated  as  was  he. 

A  while  after,  Mr.  Brooks  'had  a  serious  talk  with  Mr. 
Savage,  who  was  allowed  to  pay  the  bank  the  loss,  and 
matters  were  so  arranged  that  the  clerks  thought  that  the 
check  had  indeed  been  found,  though  they  did  not  see  it; 
but  Mr.  Brooks's  confidence  in  and  respect  for  Mr.  Savage 
was  gone,  and  the  poor  old  man's  grief  was  terrible.  "  Not 
one  honest  man  in  the  world,"  he  used  to  mutter;  "even 
if  you  educate  him  yourself,  and  nurture  him  in  your  OAvn 
bosom,  and  give  to  his  keeping  your  dearest  child,  and 
your  wealth  and  all,  he'll  deceive  you." 

Mr.  Brooks  caused  Mr.  Savage  to  give  up  his  place ;  and 
told  him  that  he  wanted  his  daughter  and  their  children  to 
visit  him  as  before,  but  hoped  he  should  never  see  him 
at  his  house,  and  if  he  did  visit  there,  he  trusted  he  would 
take  care  not  to  meet  him.  And  Mr.  Savage,  whose  feel- 
ings, under  the  circumstances,  can  perhaps  be  better  con- 
ceived than  described,  seeing  the  old  man's  wretchedness, 
withdrew  from  his^sight  quietly,  simply  saymg,  "It  is 
awful  —  I  am  innocent  —  perhaps  something  will  convince 
you,  some  day,  that  I  am." 

"  No,  no,"  said  old  Mr.  Brooks  ;  "  I  have  no  such  hope  ; 
there  is  no  room  for  hope  ;  you  have  deceived  me  in  your 
character,  and  I  am  fast  breaking  down." 

Mr.  Savage  went  to  his  home  an  almost  broken-down 
man  himself.  For  a  long  time  he  kept  all  from  his  wife  ; 


566  KNOTS    UNTIED. 

finally,  he  told  her ;  and  she,  against  his  advice,  went  to 
implore  her  father,  now  inexorable  in  his  opinion.  He 
cried  over  his  daughter,  but  would  not  yield  his  opinion. 

Mr.  Savage  became  quite  low  in  health,  and  it  was  final- 
ly thought  best,  by  his  physician,  tliat  he  should  take  a  sea 
voyage,  —  go  to  Europe  to  spend  a  year  or  two;  which 
he  did,  leaving  his  wife  and  children  at  home.  He  made 
his  will,  and  arranged  everything  as  if  he  might  never  re- 
turn. The  physicians  could  not  determine  exactly  what 
was  his  malady,  but  thought  change  of  conditions  and  travel 
would  do  him  good.  They  did  not  know  that  it  was  wounded 
affection  —  affection  for  his  dear  old  father-in-law,  whom  he 
really  loved  and  adored  —  that  was  secretly  undermining 
his  health ;  for  he  could  not  tell  them  his  story. 

Two  years  had  passed  since  that  unhappy  day,  of  the 
presentation  of  the  draft,  Avhen  there  came  a  letter  to  Mr. 
Brooks,  purporting  to  be  from  a  Catholic  clergyman,  who 
gave  his  name,  saying  that  a  dying  penitent  had  confessed 
a  presentation  of  a  forged  draft  on  his  bank  for  two  thou- 
sand dollars  at  about  such  a  time  —  day  of  the  month  he 
could  not  recollect,  —  and  that  he  was  ready  to  make  res- 
toration, to  the  extent  of  his  ability,  with  funds  left  in  his 
hands  for  the  purpose.  He  could  restore  twelve  hundred 
dollars,  and  asked  Mr.  B.  if  such  a  check  had  been  drawn 
on  his  bank  at  such  a  time,  as  the  penitent  was  not  in  the 
most  vivid  state  of  memory  at  the  time  of  confession,  and 
talked  of  two  or  three  banks  at  the  same  time. 

Here  is  light !  thought  Mr.  Brooks  ;  and  he  lost  no  time 
in  seeking  out  the  priest,  and  getting  from  him  all  he 
could  disclose  ;  and  when  the  priest,  —  who  would  not 
give  him  the  man's  name,  on  account  of  certain  relatives 
of  the  forger's,  who  were  respectable  people,  — Mr.  Brooks 
remembered  that  Mr.  Savage's  meagre  description  of  the 
man,  who  he  alleged  presented  tliQ  check,  was  like  tlio 
pri<-st's,  Mr.  Brooks  began  to  suffer  remorse.  "Yet,  where 
is  the  check?"  he  constantly  asked  himself;  and  with 
this  he  settled  his  conscleifce  as  frequently  as  it  was  dits- 


SOMETHING  UNDREAMED  OF.          567 

turbed ;  and  saying  nothing  to  his  wife  about  this,  —  to 
whom  not  till  months  after  the  fatal  day  he  had  told  his 
story,  —  thought  over  the  matter  by  himself.  lie  did  not 
receive  the  money  from  the  priest,  but  caused  him  to  put 
it  in  the  bank,  told  him  to  act  as  its  trustee,  and  that  by  and 
by  he  could  come  to  some  conclusion.  He  told  the  priest 
that  there  was  alleged  to  have  been  a  draft  for  two  thou- 
sand dollars  drawn  at  that  time  ;  and  he  learned  from  the 
priest  that  the  man  who  confessed  to  drawing  a  forged 
order  was  skilful  with  his  pen,  and  capable,  probably,  of 
forging  successfully.  And  with  this  all,  Mr.  Brooks  was 
constantly  in  trouble  of  mind. 

Finally,  it  had  been  resolved  by  the  bank  to  get  a  heavy 
safe,  in  addition  to  the  one  in  the  vault,  for  its  increasing 
business  ;  and  when  the  position  it  was  to  occupy  was  se- 
lected, it  was  seen  that  the  old  desk  must  be  removed.  In 
placing  the  safe  in  its  position,  the  old  floor  broke  down  on 
the  part  nearest  the  wall, —  for  the  banking  rooms  were  in 
an  old  building,  —  and  it  became  necessary  to  repair  the 
floor.  The  safe  was  rolled  out  in.  the  middle  of  the  room, 
and  the  floor,  or  a  portion  of  it.  taken  up.  It  was  found  that 
for  nearly  nine  inches  from  the  side  of  the  room  the  floor- 
boards had  nothing  to  rest  on,  and  consequently  broke 
down  with  the  weight  of  the  safe.  They  were  not  thick 
and  stout  enough,  and  the  reckless  joiners,  in  laying  the 
.  floor,  had  saved  themselves  labor  in  slighting  their  work. 
But  the  floor  had  served  its  purpose  well  enough  till  that 
day.  On  tearing  off  the  broken  ends  of  the  floor,  several 
papers  were  found  between  them  and  the  ceiling  of  the 
room  below,  —  the  basement  offices,  —  and  small  bits  of 
sealing-wax,  short  strings,  a  few  cents,  and  such  things. 

The  bank  men  and  clerks  looked  at  the  papers,  and  one 
of  them,  taking  up  a  paper  of  peculiar  color,  and  folded, 
said,  "What's  this?"  and  carelessly  opened  it.  "  Why,  this 

is  a  draft  on  our  bank  by  the  Bank  of ;  cashed,  too,  I 

reckon ;  how  came  it  here?  " 

Fortunately  Mr.  Brooks  was  looking  on  the  scene.     The 


568  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

old  cashier  was  sick  at  home,  the  person  in  his  place  occu- 
pied, and  the  clerk  who  found  the  paper  a  new  comer. 
"  Let  me  see  that,"  said  Mr.  Brooks,  and  reached  his  trem- 
bling hand  for  it,  took  it,  and  turned  away;  looked  at  it;  put 
it  in  his  pocket,  and  went  into  the  directors'  room;  cried  till 
lie  was  weak  :  and  finally,  coming  'out,  said  he  was  sick, 
and  must  go  home ;  had  a  carriage  ordered,  and  was  soon 
at  home,  revealing  to  his  wife  what,  together  with  the  con- 
fession of  the  dying  penitent,  he  considered  the  full  proof 
of  Mr.  Savage's  innocence. 

The  color  of  the  draft,  which  had  proven  a  little  dark  in 
the  mean  while,  however,  was  like  that  before  and  then 
still  used  by  the  country  bank  in  its  check  blanks,  and  was 
all  right.  It  flashed  upon  him  that  the  forger  had  gotten* 
possession  of  one  of  these,  done  his  work,  deceived  Mr. 
Savage,  —  and  all  was  clear  but  as  to  how  the  check  got 
there,  —  a  mystery  in  some  part  never  to  be  solved.  But 
next  day  Mr.  Brooks  observed,  what  had  never  occurred  to 
him  before'as  remarkable,  yet  which  he  remembered  to  have 
carelessly  noted  every  day  of  his  life,  that  the  base-board 
above  the  floor  had  shrunken  away  from  the  latter  for 
the  space  of  nearly  a  quarter  of  an  inch;  and  he  found  that 
the  broken  ends  of  the  floor  boards  revealed  that  they  but 
barely  reached  under  the  base  board,  so  short  were  they. 
The  draft,  found  folded,  had  somehow  slipped  out  of  the 
drawer,  and  got  on  to  the  floor ;  .and  perhaps,  in  some- 
body's haste  that  fatal  day,  had  chanced  to  be  hit  with  the 
toe  of  a  boot  severely  enough  to  be  cast  under  the  base 
board,  into  the  receptacle  where  it  was  found. 

Mr.  Brooks's  remorse  was  great.  He  would  have  hurried 
to  Europe,  to  see  his  son-in-law,  and  bring  him  back,  if  he 
could  possibly  have  then  left  New  York,  but  he  could  not ; 
and  he  did  the  next  good  thing.  He  would  not  trust  to  the 
slow  process  of  the  mail, —  for  where  his  son-in-law  was  at 
the  time  his  daughter,  who  had  been  made  acquainted 
with  the  facts,  could  not  tell.  He  was  last  heard  from  at 
Rome,  but  was  about  t$  depart  for  some  other  place  — 


THE   INDESCRIBABLE.  569 

Vienna,  I  believe.  So  Mr.  Brooks  wrote  the  most  tender 
letter,  imploring  forgiveness,  and  together  with  one  from 
Mr.  Savage's  wife,  sealed  it  up  very  securely,  selected  a 
messenger,  who  was  no  other  than  the  old  cashier's,  his 
friend's,  son,  and  fitting  him  out,  bade  him  make  haste  to 
find  Mr.  Savage,  give  him  the  letters,  and  bring  him  home. 

The  messenger  left  for  Europe  by  the  next  steamer  from 
Boston,  and  going  directly  to  Rome,  traced  out  Mr.  Savage 
from  there,  and  found  him  at  last  in  Athens,  Greece,  an 
enfeebled,  prematurely  old  man.  He  had  suddenly  changed 
his  purpose  to  go  to  Austria,  and  set  out  with  a  party  from 
Rome  to  Greece. 

Mr.  Savage  was  so  overcome  with  joy  that  he  was 
thrown  into  a  fit  of  sickness,  which  lasted  for  some  three 
weeks  ;  but  he  recovered  to  his  old  status  of  late,  and 
before  he  arrived  in  New  York  —  his  anxiety  having  gone, 
and  his  happiness  at  the  prospect  of  soon  being  restored  to 
the  arms  of  the  old  man,  whom  he  so  loved,  with  all  suspi- 
cions removed  from  his  character,  and  his  innocence  pro- 
'claimed — he  had  grown  to  be  quite  like  his  old  self  in 
appearance,  though  yet  linusually  thin. 

I  Will  not  attempt  to  describe  the  meeting  between 
him,  his  father  and  mother-in-law,  and  his  wife,  for  these 
were  all  at  his  own  house,  in  a  private  room,  when  he 
arrived  from  the  steamer, — -Mr.  Brooks  feeling  that  he 
could  not  meet  him  there,  as  he  wished  to  in  his  heart, 
for  he  would  be  overcome,  had  written  him  a  note  by 
the  coachman,  telling  him  where  he  would  find  him.  Mr. 
Brooks's  recital  of  that  scene,  which  he  told  me  more  than 
once,  was  the  most  touching  story  I  ever  listened  to; 
would  that  I  had  the  power  of  pen  to  reproduce  it ;  but  I 
have  not,  and  I  will  not  depreciate  it  by  the  attempt. 

During  the  messenger's  absence  Mr.  Brooks  had  sought 
me,  told  me  the  story  of  the  confession  and  the  finding  of 
the  note,  and  would  have  scolded  me  a  little  I  felt,  because 
I  did  not  think  of  the  shrunken  base  board,  —  which  I  now 
think  I  noticed,  —  if  he  too  had  not  overlooked  that  iu 


570  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

the  examination,  although  he  had  in  fact  noticed  it  nearly 
every  day*  that  the  rooms  had  been  occupied  by  his  bank. 

The  still  unravelled  mystery  of  how  the  check  got  out 
of  the  drawer  and  under  the  base  board,  sometimes  puzzles 
me  ;  but  it  is  no  stranger,  ailer  all,  than  many  things  I  have 
known.  There  can  be  no  doubt  of  Mr.  Savage's  innocence 
in  the  matter.  The  twelve  hundred  dollars,  with  some 
interest  thereon,  was  finally  paid  over  by  the  priest ;  but 

Mr.  Brooks  took  care  that  Father received,  in  a  way 

mysterious  to  him,  and  for  his  own  use,  a  much  larger^ 
sum ;  so  grateful  was  he  for  the  restoration  to  his  home  of 
his  innocent  son-in-law,  whom  he  had  so  deeply,  yet  natu- 
rally enough  under  the  circumstances,  wronged. 

This  case,  I  hardly  need  add,  served  to  increase  my 
caution  in  the  examination  of  my  future  "  work,"  though 
I  thought  I  was  as  wary  and  careful  as  a  man  could  well 
be  before. 


THE  PECULIAR  ADVERTISEMENTS. 


THE  DOCTRINE  OP  CHANCE  —  A  NIGHT  AT  THE  GIRARD  HOUSE,  PHILADEL- 
PHIA  AN  INOFFENSIVE  GENTLEMAN,  MY  ROOM-MATE  —  I  DISTURB  HIS 

SLEEP A  QUEER  TALE NELLIE  WILSON  AND  HER  UNCLE  WILLIAM 

WILSON,    NELLIE'S    DISSOLUTE    COUSIN  —  FEARFVL    LOVE-MAKING  —  A 

RESCUE A  CALL  TO  DUTY A  DEAD  MAN'S  WILL  MISSING STUDYING 

UP  THE  CASE  WITH  THE  GREAT  CRIMINAL  LAWYER,  JUDGE  8.  FATE 

INTERPOSES  —  A  MYSTERIOUS  AND  PECULIAR  ADVERTISEMENT AT  THE 

CONTINENTAL  HOTEL,  WAITING  AND  WATCHING AN  "  APPEARANCE  " 

WILLIAM  WILSON  AGAIN AN  UPPER  ROOM,  AND  THE  VILLAINS  THEREIN 

A  PRIVATE  CONFERENCE  NOT  ALL  SECRET A  FLASH   OF  VICTORY 

BEFORE  UTTER  DEFEAf NOTES  AND  DOCUMENTS  EXCHANGED BASE 

REJOICINGS A   FATAL    NEGLECT THE    SURPRISE COMPLETE    DIS- 
COMFITURE  THE  END  ACCOMPLISHED  —  "  COALS  OF  FIRE,''  BUT  THEY 

DO  NO  GOOD A  VIOLENT  DEATH  —  HAPPY  CONSEQUENCES THE  PE- 
CULIAR ADVERTISEMENTS  UNRAVELLED. 

COINCIDENCES  in  life  and  its  various  pursuits  are  perhaps 
governed  by  some  mysterious  law,  and  are  not  always 
resolvable  by  the  doctrine  of  chance.  The  detective  is 
not  only  brought  into  contact  with  all  sorts  of  people  with- 
out the  profession,  but  frequently  finds  himself  in  the  com- 
pany of  his  mysterious  fellow-craftsmen,  to  some  purpose. 
An  advertisement  among  the  "  Personals "  in  the  New 
York  Herald  had  directed  me  to  Philadelphia,  in  the  spring 
of  1857;  or,  rather,  following  the  thread  of  one  by  which 
I  thought  I  might  possibly  unravel  a  mystery  of  great  im- 
portance to  a  client  of  mine,  I  had  gone  to  Philadelphia ; 
and  putting  up  at  the  Girard  House,  was  compelled, 
on  account  of  the  crowded  state  of  the  hotel,  to  take  room 
for  the  night  with  a  quiet,  inoffensive  looking  gentleman, 
whose  appearance  at  times,  however,  betokened  to  mo 
that  something  was  pressing  upon  his  mind. 

orl 


572  KNOTS    UNTIED. 

Not  a  little  harassed  by  the  mission  I  was  on,  I  found 
myself  unable  to  sleep,  and  while  pondering  over  this  and 
that  deviee  for  the  next  day's  proceedings  in  my  mazy 
work,  I  was  conscious  that  I  constantly  changed  position, 
rolling  over  in  bed,  etc.,  but  as  softly  as  possible,  in 
order  to  not  awaken  my  fellow-lodger,  whom  I  supposed  to 
be  sweetly  enjoying  his  dreams.  The  night  had  worn 
well  on,  when  my  companion  addressed  me:  — 

"  Friend,  are  you  ill  ?  " 

«  0,  no,  —  why  ?  " 

"  I  have  observed  that  you  have  not  slept  any  yet  to- 
night." 

"  Then  you,  too,  have  been  awake  the  whole  time  ?  " 

"  Yes,  fully." 

"Let  me  ask,  then,  if  you  are  unwell?" 

"  0,  no ;  but  business  cares  press  upon  me,  of  a  some- 
what serious  nature." 

And  thus  beginning,  after  a  long  period  of  cautious 
colloquy  the  fact  became,  developed  to  each  fliat  the  other 
belonged  to  the  fraternity  of  detectives.  My  new  friend 
had  come  from  Cincinnati  upon  an  errand  which  he  dis- 
closed to  me  in  part,  and  I  had  the  happiness  of  making 
him,  what  he  was  pleased  to  call,  valuable  suggestions,  and 
which  so  proved  in  the  sequel,  I  believe.  I  had  aided  him, 
and  he  was  ready  to  serve  me  if  possible.  In  so  far  as  I 
properly  might,  I  made  him  acquainted  with  my  business, 
and  the  end  which  I  sought;  told  him  of  the  advertisement 
in  the  Herald,  and  how  I  interpreted  it,  and  why  I  believed 
that  I  was  on  the  right  track.  He  had  an  illustrative  case 
in  point,  very  like,  in  many  respects,  the  affair  I  had  in 
hand ;  and  inasmuch  as  a  change  in  the  programme  of  my 
investigations  took  place  in  a  day  or  two  after,  BO  that  my 
affair  was  dropped,  and  never  pressed  to  its  full  develop- 
ment, I  will  recall  my  friend's  story  here,  as  perhaps  not 
less  interesting  than  mine  might  have  been,  had  I  carried 
out  things  to  their  possible  issue. 

My  friend's  story  was,  in  substance  this :  "  Some  years 


A   QUESTION   UNSETTLED.  573 

ago  I  formed  the  acquaintance  of  a  wealthy  gentleman, 
residing  in  this  city.  His  name  we  will  call  Wilson,  and 
his  home  was  one  of  the  most  comfortable  and  luxurious 
in  the  city.  Plis  wife  had  died  some  years  before,  and  his 
home  was  presided  over  by  his  very  beautiful  niece,  Nellie 
Wilson,  a  girl  of  about  twenty  years  of  age,  who,  with  his 
only  son,  constituted  his  '  family.'  Miss  Nellie  was  a  most 
attractive  person,  tall,  symmetrically  formed,  with  a  wealth 
of  beautiful  hair.  Her  eyes  of  that  peculiar  blue  which  is 
seldom  seen  in  such  richness  as  in  hers,  were  among  the  most 
beautiful ;  in  fact,  to  not  be  too  sentimental,  and  yet  to 
speak  truth,  I  must  say  they  were  the  most  beautiful  eyes  I 
ever  looked  into.  Her  complexion  was  faultless,  and  her 
manners,  especially  in  their  quiet  majesty,  were  more  than 
faultless,  —  imposing  and  elegant.  A  great  prize,  you  see. 
Well,  I  must  say,  and  so  I  will  say,  friend,  that  if,  when  I 
first  saw  this  Miss  Nellie,  I  had  not  had  at  home  one  of  the 
best  wives  in  all  my  State,  or  in  this  whole  country,  I 
should  have  been  obliged,  I  fear,  to  let  myself  go  distracted 
over  that  embodiment  of  female  perfections,  Miss  Nellie ; 
and  as  'twas,  I  confess  I  didn't  forget  her  soon ;  and  'pears 
to  me,  if  this  is  really  I  that's  talking,  I  haven't  quite  forgot 
her  yet !  —  how  is  that,  friend  ?  " 

"  Well,"  said  I,  in  reply,  "  it  would  seem  so  to  me,  if  I'd 
let  it,  but  I  won't  trouble  you  with  that.  Go  on  with  your 
story,  for  I  am  all  interest." 

Resuming,  he  went  on  to  say  that  it  wasn't  strange  that 
such  a  girl  as  Nellie,  whose  disposition  was  as  sweet  as 
her  beauty  was  great,  had  captivated  the  kindliest  affec- 
tions of  her  uncle,  to  the  disparagement  of  the  son,  who 
was  an  eyesore  to  his  father,  being  exceedingly  dissipated. 
His  dissolute  life  had  deeply  tried  his  father,  whose  blasted 
hopes  of  his  son's  ever  becoming  reformed  had  only  tended 
to  deepen  his  regard  and  tenderness  towards  Miss  Nellie. 
In  fact,  the  son  and  father  lived,  if  not  in  a  sort  of  perpetual 
petty  warfare,  in  very  uncongenial  relations. 

Charles  Wilson,  the  father,  was  a  sort  of  bon  vivant 


574  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

(bating  the  use  of  liquors),  and  took  great  pleasure  in  in- 
viting  to  his  table  such  persons  as  pleased  his  fancy.  In- 
viting me  one  day,  I  went,  and  enjoyed  a  most  capital 
dinner,  and  with  it  an  hour  or  more  of  very  pleasing 
sociality.  Mr.  Wils6n  had  the  habit  of  retiring  to  rest  for 
an  hour  after  his  dinner,  and  bowed  himself  out  of  the 
room  with  due  explanations.  I  occupied  myself  in  conning 
over  some  books  in  the  studio,  which  was  divided  from  the 
adjoining  apartment  by  sliding  doors.  Miss  Nellie  had 
withdrawn  soon  after  dinner  to  see,  I  suppose,  after  sundry 
household  duties.  A  little  weary  of  my  solitude,  I  fell 
into  a  sort  of  doze  in  the  capacious  and  inviting  arms  of  a 
luxurious  "  study-chair,"  out  of  which  I  was  awakened, 
by  voices  which  evidently  proceeded  from  the  adjoining 
room. 

Our  dinner  had  been  partaken  of  at  a  late  hour,  and  by 
this  time  the  evening  had  advanced  well  on,  so  that  the 
uproar  of  the  street  had  ceased,  leaving  that  quiet  silence 
which  one  can  almost  feel  by  the  touch,  and  rending  audible 
almost  the  least  sound.  I  was  not  obliged  to  listen,  but 
was  rather  forced  to  hear  all  that  was  going  on  in  the  next 
room.  It  must  have  been,  I  saw,  the  voice  of  William 
Wilson,  the  son,  that  had  broken  my  reverie,  and  as  I  dis- 
covered something  husky  and  gross  in  it,  I  concluded  he 
was  intoxicated,  muttering, — 

"  Hear  me  now,  Nellie  !  Curse  you  !  You  —  know  —  1 
—  love  —  you,"  —  drawing  out  his  words  with  the  peculiar 
utterance  of  a  drunken,  but  a  very  earnest  man.  "  Yes,  1 
worship  the  very  dust  under  your  feet.  Your  beauty 
makes  me  crazy.  It  transports  me  in  imagination  into  fairy 
regions.  Yes,  it's  the  fairy  regions  themselves,  in  its  com- 
plete self !  " 

"  Away  with  your  ridiculous  praises ;  I  will  have  none 
of  your  compliments  now.  Why  do  you  continue  to  perse- 
cute me  ?  Have  I  not  made  my  decision  plain  to  you  ? 
I  cannot  recall  it.  I  will  not  change,"  she  replied. 

"  Dear  Nellie,  do  have  mercy  !  —  don't  say  so  !     If  you 


,(     ',  . 


THE   RESCUE.  577 

but  knew  how  utterly  I  worship  you  !  I  have  no  thoughts 
but  of  you  !  Every  pulse  of  my  being  beats  for  you  !  O, 
I  beg  you,  sweet,  blessed  idol !  —  do,  do  smile  once  upon 
me  ! "  the  intoxicated  brute  responded. 

"  William,  you  are  grossly  intoxicated.  How  dare  you 
come  to  me  thus  ?  " 

"  My  own  cousin  Nellie,  drunk  or  sober,  I  will  be  yours ; 
and  by  all  the  gods,  you  shall  be  mine  !  " 

"  I  pity  you,  William,  but  I  beg  you  to  leave  me  now,  or 
I  must  and  will  leave  your  presence." 

"  Never  !  my  beautiful  cousin,  until  you  own  that  you 
love  me.  I  would  barter  all  ihe  hopes  I  ever  had  of  future 
happiness  for  one  moment  of  your  love.  I  could  stand  a 
whole  year  gazing  in  rapture  into  your  sweet  lace.  O, 
darling  one !  blessed  Nellie  !  swear  that  you  will  be 
mine  ! " 

Thus  the  young  fellow  went  on,  working  himself  into  a 
great  passion. 

"  Mister —  Wilson  !  "  here  broke  in  Miss  Nellie,  "unless 
you  leave  the  room,  or  let  me,  I'll  call  for  help." 

"  No,  you  shall  not !  I  know  that  my  father  loves  you 
better  than  he  ever  did  me,  and  I  know  that  in  his  will  he 
has  left  you  nearly  all  his  property,  and  left  me  with  next 
to  nothing.  So  much  you  have  won  upon  him,  and  to  add 
to  my  misery  you  scorn  my  love ;  but  there's  no  power  on 
earth  to  forbid  you  being' mine,  and  you  shall  be  !  " 

There  was  a  movement  in  the  room,  as  if  Miss  Nellie 
was  proceeding  to  some  action. 

"  Nellie,  you  shall  not  avoid  me  so.  I  tell  you,  you  shall 
be  mine.  0,  dearest !  own  that  you  love  me  !  Come,  let 
me  fold  you  to  my  breast !  " 

There  was  a  slight,  fitful  scream,  and  I  heard  the  delir- 
ious fellow  rushing  towards  her ;  and  feeling  her  peril,  I 
jumped  to  the  sliding  doors,  pushed  them  apart  just  as 
the  drunken  wretch  had  wrapped  his  arms  about  the  girl. 
But  when  he  saw  me  he  let  go  his  grasp,  and  with  a  mad- 
dened expression  on  his  face,  hastened  from  the  room.  I 


578  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

caught  the  frightened  girl  in  my  arms,  and  bore  her  to  the 
sofa  ;  but  it  was  some  time  before  she  recovered  from  her 
swoon. 

Fearing  that  this  might  not  be  the  last  wrong  which  the 
drunken  son  would  inflict  upon  that  beautiful  girl,  1  felt 
it 'nothing  less  than  my  duty  to  inform  his  father  of  the 
eon's  outrageous  course  ;  and  William  was  banished  from 
the  house. 

Not  long  after  I  left  for  the  West,  and  was  absent  a  week 
or  so.  The  night  of  my  return  I  received  a  call  from 

Judge  S ,  the  great  criminal  advocate,  who  told  mo 

that  he  had  been  hunting  m<e  all  day,  exclaiming, "  And 
thank  a  blessed  Providence  I  have  found  you  at  last." 

"  You  are  a  little  excited,  judge ;  what's  the  matter?" 

"  I  am  in  a  great  perplexity,  and  I  want  your  aid  to  get 
out  of  it,  for  I  know  that  you  knew  George  Wilson  — 
did  n't  you?" 

"Knew  him?  Yes,  and  know  him  perfectly  well.  He's 
a  great  friend  of  mine,  I'm  glad  to  believe." 

"  Hadn't  you  heard  that  he  is  dead  ?  " 

"  Dead  !     It  isn't  possible  —  is  it  ?  " 

"  Yes  ;  died  night  before  last." 

"  How  sudden !  Is  there  any  suspicion  of  something 
wrong  about  his  death  ?  " 

"  No ;  for  he  had  been  unwell  for  quite  a  while.  Ho 
died  of  heart  disease.  You,  perhaps,  don't  know  that  I  was 
his  attorney ;  but  you  do  know  how  wretchedly  he  lived 
with  that  infamous  son,  William.  A  few  months  ago  I 
drew  Mr.  Wilson's  will.  He  had  been  so  long  complaining 
that  he  began  to  fear  that  he  could  not  last  long,  and  wanted 
to  make  all  things  secure  for  his  niece,  Nellie,  who,  by  the 
will,  was  made  legatee  of  nearly  all  his  property,  he  leav- 
ing but  a  small  annuity  to  his  son  — and  —  " 

"  But,  here  let  me  a.sk  you  if  William  knows  about  tho 
provisions  of  the  will?" 

"  Not  that  I  know,  for  $.  surety ;  but  let's  see.  I  do 
remember  that  when  the  will  was  witnessed,  we  were  dis- 


ALL  UNSUSPECTED.  579 

turbed  by  a  slight  noise,  as  of  one  disposed  to  obtrude  ; 
but  I  saw  no  one." 

"  You  may  be  sure  that  it  was  William  whom  you  heard, 
for  I  chance  to  know  that  he  understood  the  chief  contents 
of  the  will ;  "  and  then  I  recited  to  him  what  I  had  over- 
heard William  say  to  Miss  Nellie. 

"  This  may  be  a  thing  in  point,"  said  the  attorney,  when 
I  had  concluded ;  "  but  let  me  finish  what  I  have  to  tell 
you.  The  will  was  placed  in  my  care,  and  I  enveloped  it 
and  placed  it  in  my  private  drawer.  When  I  heard  of  Mr. 
Wilson's  death,  I  reverted  to  my  drawer,  took  out  the  en- 
velope, but  found  no  will  within  it — only  a  blank  piece 
of  paper  there !  You  can  hardly  judge  of  my  thrilling 
surprise."  s 

"  Ah  !  some  scamp,  or  interested  person  then,  had  played 
you  a  trick  ?  " 

"  Precisely.  I  was  so  taken  aback  that  I  was  quite 
nonplussed  —  more  than  'thunder  struck.'  But  after  a 
while  I  recovered  my  self-possession,  and  began  to  revolve 
iu  my  mind  the  proper  course  to  pursue  under  the  circum- 
stances. As  good  luck  had  it,  I  was  alone,  and  nobody 
knew  my  discomfiture." 

"  Do  you  entertain  any  special  suspicions  of  anybody  ?  " 

"  I  am  at  a  loss  whom  to  suspect ;  but  you  give  me  a 
valuable  hint,  perhaps,  in  what  you  have  related.  It 
seems  very  probable  that  William  Wilson  could  give  me 
light  upon  the  matter,  if  so  disposed.  Nevertheless,  I  feel 
certain  that  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  get  access  to  my 
drawer." 

"  But  you  have  several  clerks  ?  " 

"  Yes,  five  ;  but  I  have  full  confidence  in  each  of  them. 
None  of  these  knew  what  the  envelope  contained,  for  I 
never  confide  to  anybody  more  than  I  think  he  has  need 
to  know;  and  of  the  existence  of  the  will  none  of. ray 
clerks  had  any  occasion  to  be  apprised.  I  made  the  loss 
known  to  no  one ;  but  locked  up  my  drawer,  and  plunged 
into  my  business  in  my  usual  %ianner." 

34  23 


580  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

"  You  were  wise  in  so  doing.  Did  you  notice  anything 
at  all  disturbed  in  your  desk  ?  " 

"  Nothing.  It  must  have  been  carefully  manipulated, 
and  opened  by  a  skilful  hand." 

"  And  on  reflection,  you  have  no  just  reason  to  entertain 
suspicion  of  any  of  the  clerks?" 

"  No.  I  have  studied  them  closely,  but  can  see  nothing 
unusual,  nothing  guilt-like  in  the  manner  of  any  of  them. 
But  thus  outwitted,  as  soon  as  I  heard  of  your  re-appear- 
ance in  the  city,  the  thought  flashed  upon  me  that  perhaps 
you  could  unravel  the  mystery." 

"  Well,  now  I  have  your  story,  I'll  see  what  I  can  do. 
Something  tells  me  that  that  will  can  be  found.  Do  you 
believe  in  Fate  ?  Sometimes  I  have  premonitions  which 
come  as  suddenly  as  lightning,  and  prove  in  the  end  of 
worth.  I  guess  I  shall  be  able  to  serve  you." 

After  the  usual  leave-taking,  the  attorney  departed,  and 
I  leaned  back  in  my  chair,  and  threw  my  feet  listlessly 
upon  the  table  in  the  room,  and  set  about  conjuring  up 
schemes.  A  score  of  plans  flitted  through  my  mind  ;  but 
the  case  was  a  perplexing  one,  and  I  knew  not  which  plan 
to  adopt  for  action.  But  here.  Fate  again;  for  in  the 
midst  of  my  greatest  distraction,  I  chanced  to  note  on  the 
table  a  copy  of  the  Now  York  Mercury,  of  date  a  day  or 
two  before,  which  I  picked  up  for  diversion,  and  running 
almost  unwittingly  over  a  column  of  advertisements,  my 
eye  lighted  upon  this  :  — 

"  LET  THE  SEEKER  AFTER  KNOWLEDGE  TAKE  HEED.  Witt 
will  be  pleased  to  know  the  WILL  of  the  unwilling,  at  nine 
o'clock,  Monday  night,  next?  for  success  and  joy,  perhaps, 
await  him.  His  CONTINENTAL  FRIEND." 

Looking  back  upon  it  now,  I  don't  see  why  I  was 
startled  at  this.  But  I  was.  Perhaps  it  was  because  of 
the  frequent  repetition  of  the  word  "  will ; "  but  so  it  was 


"A  LITTLE,   UPPER  CHAMBER."  581 

at  any  rate ;  and  I  thought  I  had  a  clew  at  last.  "  His 
Continental  Friend"? 

"  0,  I  have  it !  The  Continental  Hotel  is  a  place  of 
rendezvous.  I'll  watch  and  wait." 

This  much  decided,  I  turned  in  reverie  upon  the  beau- 
tiful Nellie,  and  felt  more  than  usual  joy  in  the  prospect 
of.  being  of  avail  to  her,  and,  I  confess,  not  a  little  ugly 
towards  William,  whom,  what  I  had  seen  of  him  had  led 
me  to  despise.  But  he  was  a  fellow  of  some  ability,  and 
must  have  been  the  prompter  of  the  work  of  abstraction ; 
and,  having  money  at  times,  might  have  corrupted  one  of 
the  clerks  into  his  interest.  Thus  I  reflected,  till  I  be- 
came, indeed,  convinced.  At  the  Continental  I  resolved 
to  be,  at  the  time  appointed  in  the  advertisement,  or  be- 
fore. 

I  was  on  hand  at  an  early  hour,  watching  all  that  passed. 
The  time  went  on  very  sluggishly,  and  I  was  getting  ner- 
vous. A  quiet  stealthly-looking  person  came  in  at  last,  and 
ordered  a  room  for  the  night.  I  watched  the  number  on 
the  register ;  and  posting  myself  on  the  street,  being  par- 
tially disguised,  I  waited  till  William  should  come,  which 
he  did,  in  a  half-intoxicated  mood.  He  scanned  the  regis- 
ter in  a  maudlin  way,  and  sent  up  his  card  to  the  room, 
which,  as  good  luck  would  have  it,  was  on  the  topmost 
floor,  so  crowded  was  the  hotel  that  night. 

The  servant  who  bore  the  card  returned,  saying, — 

"  He  says, '  Send  the  gentleman  up.'  " 

I  waited  till  the  clumsy  steps  of  William  sounded  as 
from  on  the  second  flight,  when  I  quietly  followed,  increas- 
ing my  pace  as  I  neared  him  ;  so  that  I  was  near  upon 
him  when  the  door  opened. 

"  Halloo,  Wilson  !  Here  all  right !  Well,  I'm  more  than 
glad  to  see  you  ! "  exclaimed  the  inmate,  as  Wilson  en- 
tered, and  the  door  closed. 

Tripping  to  the  door,  I  listened,  and  heard  William  quite 
distinctly,  his  cups  having  added  emphasis  to  his  some- 
what gruff  voice. 


582  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

"  Well,  Mr.  Roberts,  my  very  legs  tremble,  for  I  feared  it 
might  not  be  you  here  after  all.  I'd  most  forgot  the  name 
we'd  agreed  on  for  the  register,  but  I  know  your  hand- 
writing. Was  it  Hyde  ?  I  thought  it  was  Hood  we'd 
fixed  on.  But  no  matter  now.  Here  you  are,  and  that's 
enough." 

Instantly  that  I  heard  the  name  Roberts,  I  knew  it  must  • 
be  the  attorney's  chief  clerk,  for  he  had  spoken  of  this 
clerk  as  having  been  longest  in  his  employ,  and  you  can 
well  understand  how  I  became  at  once  all  ears. 

"  But  you  have  that  important  paper  all  secure  ?  " 

"  Of  course  I  have,  or  I  wouldn't  have  advertised.  I 
feared  you  might  have  left  New  York,  and  wouldn't  get 
the  notice  in  time." 

"But  how  did  you  get  it — and  when?  Tell  me  the 
story,  my  brave  boy,"  said  William,  with  the  patronizing 
voice  of  a  new-made  millionnaire. 

"  Never  mind  now  —  tell  you  some  other  time.  It's 
enough,  isn't  it,  that  it's  here  ?  " 

"  All  right,  then.  Let's  take  up  the  '  business  in  order,' 
as  they  say  in  Congress.  How  much  shall  I  give  you  for 
that  precious  will  ?  " 

"  It  is  a  '  precious '  document,  I  assure  you,  Mr.  Wilson," 
said  the  scheming  Roberts.  Do  you  know  its  provisions?  " 

"  Yes,  I  know  all  about  it ;  or  all  that's  important ;  for 
luckily  I  overheard  most  of  it  read.  My  blessed  -father 
left  everything  of  consequence  to  my  cousin  Nellie ;  but? 
ah  1  ha!  that  will's  got  to  be  probated, and  who's  to  do  it? 
That  fireplace  "-(pointing  to  the  grate  in  the  room)  "  will 
tell  no  tale,  and  here's  matches.  But  fix  your  terms  — 
what  shall  I  give  you  for  the  document?  " 

"  One  hundred  dollars  down,  for  I  am  about  visiting  my 
old  home  in  Canada,  and  want  a  little  more  ready  cash ; 
and  say,  if  you  don't  think  it's  too  much,  your  promissory 
note,  made  negotiable,  but  with  a  private  agreement  back 
from  me  that  you  shall  not  be  pressed  to  pay  it  till  you  get 
in  full  possession  of  your  estate,  for  ten  thousand  dollars." 


SAVING  THE   WILL.  585 

"  A  little  l  steep '  —  aren't  you,  Roberts  ?  But  you  are  a 
brave  fellow,  and  it  shall  be  done !  Here's  ink,  I  see,  and 
here's  paper,"  said  William,  fumbling  his  pocket  evidently 
for  an  old  scrap,  for  he  seemed  to  meet  delays.  "  There, 
there's  the  note  —  now  your  agreement." 

Papers  rustled  lightly  on  the  table,  and  "  All  right,"  said 
Roberts ;  "  there's  the  document,  read  it  at  your  leisure, 
and  do  what  you  like  with  it." 

At  this  point,  in  my  eagerness,  I  had  bent  lower  down 
by  the  door,  and  discovered  a  small,  old  keyhole,  for  the 
door  had  been  evidently  newly  trimmed  with  locks,  through 
which  I  could  see  with  some  distinctness. 

William  read  over  the  will ;  and  with  many  oaths,  and  in 
his  delirium  of  success,  losing  sense  of  caution,  half  shout- 
ed, as  he  swung  the  document  in  the  air  at  the  tip  of  his 
fingers,  and  half  danced  about  the  room :  — 

"  There,  now  !  my  blessed,  sweet  little  child,  cousin  Nel- 
lie, you're  outwitted  —  and  —  you  —  are  —  in — my  power  ! 
Love  me,  and  tell  me  so,  or  you  shall  beg.  No  !  I  vow  I'll 
buy  your  graces.  I'll  bring  you  to  my  feet,  but  I  will 
never  marry  you !  Confound  you  !  Roberts,  give  me  a 
match." 

Roberts  plunged  his  hand  into  his  vest  pocket,  and 
drew  out  a  portable  safe,  took  a  match  therefrom,  and 
struck  it,  handing  it  to  William,  whose  hand  trembled  in 
the  flush  of  victory,  as  he  touched  it  to  the  paper. 

The  unwise  fellows  had  neglected  to  bolt  the  door,  — 
probably  from  the  fact  of  being  on  the  highest  flight,  —  so 
I  had  not  the  obstacle  of  a  lock  to  overcome,  as  I  quickly 
turned  the  knob,  and  rushed  in  upon  the  astonished  pair, 
and  snatched  the  paper  from  William's  hand  while  only  a 
corner  of  it  was  burned. 

"  Ah,  you  scamps  !  "  I  exclaimed,  "  I  am  in  the  nick  of 
time,  it  seems.  You  are  caught  in  the  last  and  important 
act.  Do  you  think  there's  no  God  in  heaven  to  watch 
over  innocents  like  your  cousin  Nellie  ?  " 

The  look  of  stupid  horror  which  the  countenances  of 


586  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

Roberts  and  William  Wilson  revealed,  remains  as  fresh  on 
my  mind  as  if  it  were  only  yesterday  that  I  surprised 
them. 

I  lost  no  time  in  getting  the  will  safely  into  my  pocket, 
and  bade  them  defiance.  Roberts  rushed  out  of  the  room, 
as  if  he  had  been  shot,  and  from  that  hour  the  strictest 
search  in  Philadelphia  couldn't  discover  him.  Nobody 
knows  where  he  went.  As  for  William,  he  was  too  much 
overcome  to  stir,  and  I  left  the  room  with  him  in  it;  and  I 
didn't  sleep  that  night  till  I  had  relieved  myself  of  the  pos- 
session of  the  will,  placing  it  in  the  attorney's  hands. 

Of  course  Miss  Nellie  had  no  trouble  in  getting  posses- 
sion of  her  property,  but  she  would  not  allow  her  now  pen- 
itent and  subdued  cousin  to  be  pursued  at  the  law  for  his 
nefarious  conspiracy.  Indeed,  she  gave  him  nearly  double 
the  amount  his  father  had  provided  in  annuity.  However, 
it  didn't  serve  him  long ;  for  in  less  than  six  months  from 
that  time,  while  partially  intoxicated,  and  driving  a  frac- 
tious horse,  he  was  thrown  from  the  carriage,  and  so  injured 
on  the  head  that  his  broken  constitution  could  not  recover 
from  the  shock,  and  he  died  in  a  few  days. 

And  now  comes  what  to  me  is  the  most  cheerful  part 
of  the  story.  One  day,  a  couple  of  years  after  that  event- 
ful night,  being  here,  and  meeting  by  chance  a  handsome 
cousin  of  mine,  Dr.  Charles  R.,  of  St.  Louis,  who  had  just 
returned  from  Europe,  where  he  had  pursued  his  medical 
studies,  in  Vienna,  and  having  only  a  short  time  to  spend 
with  him,  for  I  was  obliged  to  be  off  early  next  morning, 
I  ventured  to  ask  him  to  accompany  me  to  the  home  of 
Nellie,  for  she  had  bidden  me  to  always  call  on  her  when 
in  Philadelphia.  We  went.  She  is  very  handsome,  and 
so  is  cousin  Charles,  and  I  reckon  both  discovered  this 
fact  of  the  other  instantly,  and  appreciated  it,  for  Nellie, 
though  very  kind  and  courteous  to  me,  managed  to  occupy 
herself  mostly  in  entertaining  "  the  stranger." 

To  cut  the  story  short,  we  left  the  house  duly. 

"  Why,  John,"  •  —  for  that  is  my  name,  —  "  why  didn't 


A  TRANSLATION.  587 

you  tell  me  beforehand  what  a  glorious  creature  you  were 
going  to  see  ?  I'd  been  a  little  more  particular  about  my 
dress,  or  probably  refused  to  accompany  you,"  said  cousin 
Charles,  half  complainingly,  as  we  got  well  out  of  doors. 

"  Ah  !  ah  !  Charley,  —  aren't  you  glad,  on  the  whole, 
though  ?  "  said  I,  touching  him  under  the  chin,  "  that  I 
didn't  tell  you,  my  boy  ?  " 

"  Indeed  —  no  —  yes  —  well,  I  don't  Icnow  as  I  care, 
after  all ;  but  isn't  she  elegant.  And  if  I'm  any  reader  of 
human  nature  she's  as  good  as  she  is  beautiful." 

I  saw  that  he  was  thorougly  "  smitten  ;  "  and  as  we  went 
on  to  my  hotel,  narrated  to  him  the  story  of  the  will.  The 
romance  of  the  thing  served  to  engage  him  the  more. 
Well,  I  needn't  repeat  all.  They  loved,  and  were  married> 
and  are  the  happiest  couple  out  of  heaven,  I  reckon. 

Such  was  my  room-mate's  tale,  for  which  I  thanked  him, 
and  we  both  then  managed  to  sleep  thereafter.  But  per- 
haps the  reader  will  have  curiosity  to  know  what  was  the 
peculiar  advertisement  which  had  drawn  me  to  Philadel- 
phia at  that  time. 

It  was  this  :  — 

"  Astor    discounts,    Wednesday,  the  Sth.      So  does 
Independence  Hall.  RUDOLPH,  Cashier." 

"  Astor  "  I  had  read  by  contrary.  It  meant  "  Girard," 
I  thought,  —  Girard  Bank.  "  Independence  Hall  "  I  con- 
strued as  signifying  a  place  of  meeting  in  front  of  that 
building ;  and  "  Rudolph  "  —  for  this  was  the  point  —  was 
a  notorious  bank  robber,  on  whose  track  1  wished  to  get,  by 
the  name  of  Ralph  Seeker,  among  his  "  aliases,"  but  Ralph 
was  his  real  name  — "  Rudolph  "  being  the  German  for  the 
same  ;  and  doubtless  I  was  right  in  my  translation ;  but  as 
nothing  came  of  that,  as  I  have  said  before,  I  here  leave 
"  peculiar  advertisements  "  in  general,  to  the  unravelling 
of  the  curious.  But  it  is  a  science  of  itself,  which,  in  its 
subtleties,  sometimes  baffles  the  keenest  wits.  I  am 


588  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

prompted,  as  I  write,  to  add  hereto,  for  the  pleasure  of 
the  curious  reader,  sundry  of  the  "  bliud  methods"  (in 
advertisements  usually)  by  which  one  scoundrel  intimates 
to  another  his  whereabouts,  and  what  he  has  accomplished, 
or  where  he  would  meet  another  to  aid  in  some  crime,  etc., 
under  circumstances  which  forbid  their  communicating 
through  the  mail  or  by  telegraph.  But  I  have  hardly 
room  in  this  article,  already  too  long. 


COLONEL  NOVENA,  THE  PRINCE  OF  CON- 
FIDENCE MEN. 


THE  CONFIDENCE  MAN,  PAR  EXCELLENCE  ;  A  REAL  "  ARTIST  "  —  "  COLONEL 
KOVENA,"  "  COUNT  ANTONELLI,"  "  GENERAL  ALVERO8A,"  "  SIR  RICHARD 
MURRAY"  MAKES  A  VISIT  —  A  MAN  OF  GREAT  NATURAL  ABILITY,  WITH 
"A  SCREW  LOOSE"  —  A  BIT  OF  "PHILOSOPHY"  (?)  —  THE  MA^T  DE- 
SCRIBED, VERSATILE,  AGILE,  BRAVE,  DARING  —  THE  COLONEL  AS  A 

GALLANT  —  CURIOUS  TALE  ABOUT  TWO  SISTERS  AND  COLONEL  KOVENA  — 
PRESIDENT  BUCHANAN,  PROFESSOR  HENRY,  GENERAL  FREMONT,  AND  MR. 
8EWARD  OF  THB  NUMBER  OF  HIS  FRIENDS  —  DISHONEST  WAYS  OF  DOING 
"LEGITIMATE  BUSINESS"  —  A  SHOCKING  BAD  MEMORY  —  THE  COLONEL 
AS  A  PHILANTHROPIST  —  COMES  TO  GRIEF  —  AT  WASHINGTON,  D.  C. — 
SARATOGA  TEMPTS  THE  COLONEL  —  HIS  SUCCESSES  THERE  —  A  CHANGE 

OF  CIRCUMSTANCES A   VALUABLE   DIAMOND    NECKLACE    LOST  —  THE 

GREAT  MYSTERY THE  HISTORIC  CHARACTER  OF  THE  NECKLACE  —  THOR- 
OUGH SEARCHING THE  SHREWDEST  SCAMPS  GENERALLY  HAVE  BETTER 

RUPUTATION8  THAN  MOST  PEOPLE  —  TOO  GOOD  A  "  CHARACTER  "  A  MAT- 
TER OF  SUSPICION "  BIR.  HENRY  INMAN,  ARTIST,"  IS  CREATED HEAD- 
WAY MADE — THE  NECKLACE  COMES  TO  LIGHT,  IN  THE  POSSESSION  OP 

A  MOST  REMARKABLE  WOMAN  —  GOODNESS  IN  BAD  PLACES  A  LIVING 

MORAL  PARADOX  —  AN  "  UNFORTUNATE  "  GOOD  SAMARITAN  —  THE  GEN- 
ERAL'S  SENSE  OF  HONOR  WOUNDED  —  TO  CANADA  —  DOWN  THE  RAPIDS 
OF  THE  ST.  LAWRENCE  — A  TOMB  IN  GREENWOOD  —  RENDERING  TO  WO- 
MAN HER  DUE  —  A  BLESSED  CHARITY  —  WALL  STREET  CORRUPTS  THE 
MORALS  OF  TUB  NATION. 

"  CONFIDENCE  men,"  in  the  usual  way,  are  so  common,  — 
such  as  the  fellows  who  drop  pocket-books,  stuffed  with 
counterfeit  money,  in  the  streets  of  cities,  in  order  that 
innocent  countrymen  or  uninitiated  foreigners  may  pick 
them  up,  and  divide  the  spoils  with  an  up-coming  witness, 
and  give  him  all  their  good  money  in  order  to  have  a  large 
share  in  the  poor  or  counterfeit  money,  —  that  I  have  hesi- 
tated a  moment  over  the  caption  I  should  give  this  narrative, 
lest  the  reader  should  think  I  am  about  to  introduce  to  him 

23*  589 


590  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

one  of  those  common,  every-day  affairs.  But,  on  reflection, 
I  cannot  think  of  a  more  appropriate  title  than  I  have 
chosen,  for  Colonel  Novena  was,  of  all  the  rogues  and 
scoundrels  I  have  encountered  in  my  professional  life,  the 
confidence  man,  par  excellence,  as  the  French  would  say, 
not  by  the  "  excellence  "  of  his  high  character,  to  be  sure, 
or  his  moral  worth,  but  by  his  artistic  superiority. 

The  public  will  recollect,  or  such  of  them  as  enjoy 
retentive  memories  of  names  will  do  so,  how  much  was 
said  some  years  ago,  by  the  public  press,  for  a  few  days, 
about  a  certain-  Cuban,  a  "  Colonel  Novena,"  "  Count 
Antonelli,"  "  General  Alverosa,"  and  "  Sir  Richard  Murray," 
—  for  by  these  names,  as  well  as  sundry  others,  was  this 
gentleman  in  his  career  known.  His  true  name,  as  definite- 
ly as  I  could  ever  learn,  was  Julian  Cinquez ;  but  even 
that  is  doubtful,  and  it  matters  not.  He  was  a  man  of 
brilliant  talents,  indeed,  great  native  ability ;  and  the  won- 
der is  that  he  did  not  attach  himself  to  some  honorable 
profession,  or  follow  some  pursuit  in  life  recognized  as 
legitimate  ;  for  he  could  not  only  have  adorned  any  profes- 
sion which  he  might  have  adopted,  but  he  might  have 
made  an  extensive  fortune  as  well  —  or  so  we  are  apt  to  say 
of  like  characters.  Yet,  to  confess  the  truth,  I  am  not  so 
certain  that  our  moral  reflections  upon  these  matters  are 
correct.  The  fact  that  the  man  did  not  lead  the  life  which 
his  talents  apparently  indicated  that  he  might,  is  perhaps 
evidence  in  itself  that  the  world  might  misjudge  him.  He 
might  not  have  been  able  to  "  adorn  any  profession  "  after 
all,  for  in  such  men's  characters,  there  is  obviously  always 
"  a  screw  loose ; "  and  for  want  of  fixedness  or  tightness  of 
that  same  "  screw,"  is  it,  perhaps,  that  the  general  machine 
will  not  work.  That  may  be  the  philosophy  of  the  matter. 

Colonel  Novena  was  no  small  man  in  his  way.  He  was  a 
handsome  man,  too,  possessing  a  finely-shaped  face,  with 
large,  dark,  not  quite  black  eyes,  and  eyelashes  such  as 
would  arouse  the  enthusiasm  of  the  master  painters,  and 
which  gave  to  those  eyes  that  sweet,  alluring  expression 


A  FAULT   OF  VILLAINS.  591 

so  irresistible  to  women ;  or  when  reflecting  the  light  of 
anger  from  them,  added  a  twofold  horror  to  their  expres- 
sion, enough  to  make  the  strongest  men  quail,  for  the  man 
then  seemed  a  very  demon.  The  colonel  was  about  five 
feet  ten  inches  in  height,  elegantly  proportioned,  his  form 
being,  perhaps,  as  nearly  perfect,  in  evejy  respect,  as  any 
man  on  the  wide  globe  could  boast  of.  Grace,  dignity,  and 
strength  combined  in  it,  and  when  at  all  aroused  or  excited, 
Colonel  Novena  was  as  lithe  and  flexible  as  a  cat,  or  better, 
perhaps,  a  tiger.  Notwithstanding  the  classic  outlines  of 
his  face,  it  possessed  great  mobility,  —  and  having  a  com- 
ical vein  in  his  nature,  Colonel  Novena  could  imitate  any- 
thing, from  the  grimace  of  a  pretty,  simpering  girl,  to  the 
Falstaffian  stolidity  of  a  Dutch  judge,  and  was  one  of  the 
most  excellent  of  story-tellers,  in  consequence.  In  short, 
Colonel  Novena  possessed  all  the  talents  and  natural 
"  gifts "  necessary  to  make  a  man  the  most  acceptable 
companion  under  any  circumstances.  He  won  his  way 
easily  into  everybody's  heart,  whom  he  considered  worth 
his  notice,  either  socially  or  business-wise ;  by  which  I 
mean,  whom  he  regarded  as  of  consequence  enough  to  be 
exploited  upon  or  victimized ;  and  he  had  a  way  of  exciting 
Ifce  sympathy  of  even  officers  of  the  law,  when  they  felt 
conscious  of  his  guilt ;  and  I  dare  say  that  there  has  sel- 
dom ever  existed  a  man  so  competent  to  play  the  role  of 
"  Injured  Innocence,"  as  was  Colonel  Novena.  It  is  not 
surprising  then  that  he  ran  so  long  a  career  of  forgery  and 
false  pretence  of  all  kinds. 

Colonel  Novena  knew  the  art  of  dressing  well.  He  was 
never  over-dressed,  —  a  fault  of  villains  of  his  kind  gen- 
erally. He  was  never  too  poorly  dressed  for  the  special 
business  he  had  in  hand.  His  role  of  the  gentleman  of  lei- 
sure and  wealth  was  incomparably  well  taken ;  and  being 
thoroughly  educated,  he  acted  the  part  of  the  literary 
savant  to  perfection.  On  the  prairies  or  frontier,  he  was 
the  most  daring  and  hardy  of  backwoodsmen,  and  com- 
pelled the  admiration  of  his  fellow-travellers  or  hunters  for 


592  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

his  daring  and  prowess.  He  was  a  genius,  in  fine,  socially. 
He  seemed  to  need  no  "  credentials  "  anywhere,  save  his 
fine  manners  and  honest-looking  face.  Yet  he  always  took 
care  to  secure  the  best  letters  of  introduction  everywhere, 
and  had  his  trunks  full  of  such  things,  given  him  by  the 
great  men  of  the  land,  such  as  President  Buchanan,  Gen- 
eral Fremont,  Professor  Henry,  Chief  Justice  Taney,  Cor- 
coran the  banker,  Mr.  Seward,  Andrew  Johnson,  etc. ;  for 
he  obtained  them  from  leading  statesmen  of  all  sorts  of 
political  faiths,  from  men  of  science,  and  from  leading  finan- 
ciers, and  did  not  hesitate  to  demand  the  like  of  the  most 
notable  ladies  of  the  land. 

Why  Colonel  Novena  never  condescended  to  marry  some 
one  (or  more,  perhaps),  of  the  ladies  of  great  wealth  whom 
he  numbered  among  his  admirers,  is  a  mystery  to  me, 
for  there  was  not  one  of  them  who  woulc^  not  have  been 
proud  to  own  him  as  her  husband.  But  perhaps  the  col- 
onel had  some  valid  reason  for  remaining  a  bachelor,  or  for 
assuming  to  be  one ;  for  there  is  no  certainty,  of  course, 
that  he  had  not  a  wife  somewhere,  or  that  in  several  parts 
of  the  world  (for  he  had  travelled  all  over  it)  there  might 
not  have  been  found  many  ladies,  each  one  of  whom  might 
have  claimed  him.  However,  it  is  probable  that  such  WTO 
not  the  case,  for  "  murder  "  of  that  kind  "  will  out "  in 
time,  as  well  as  the  real  article  of  homicide,  and  I  was 
never  able  to  learn  that  the  colonel  was  married. 

As  an  example  of  the  wonderful  fascinations  of  the  col- 
onel, it  may  not  be  improper  to  relate  here  a  tale,  told  me 
by  one  who  was  once  on  terms  of  intimacy  with  the  schemer 
when  he  figured  in  Fifth  Avenue  society,  and  who  vouched 
for  the  truth  of  it,  as  largely  based  on  his  own  observations 
of  the  colonel's  course  with  the  ladies  in  question. 

There  were  two  sisters,  the  one  a  middle-aged  widow, 
very  rich,  and  quite  good-looking ;  the  other,  much  younger, 
very  beautiful,  but  without  money  —  poor,  in  fact.  The 
latter  was  very  gifted  as  a  colloquist,  and  was  a  charming 
woman  of  society.  The  former  was  also  a  lady  of  many 


I     ",      i,  ^= 

.-•-  -id  \n 

T 


f  UNEXAMPLED   GALLANTRY.  595 

accomplishments.  The  parents  of  these  ladies  were  dead, 
and  the  elder  and  rich  one  had  assumed  the  guardianship 
of  the  younger,  who  lived  with  her,  for  she  kept  up  her 
house  after  her  husband's  death,  and  lived  in  great  style. 
The  colonel  made  the  acquaintance  of  the  elder  at  a  fash- 
ionable party  in  Madison  Avenue  one  night  j  and  learning 
that  she  was  very  rich,  was,  of  course,  sufficiently  charmed 
with  her  to  seek  admittance  to  her  house,  which  he  duly 
effected.  Calling  upon  the  widow,  he  met  her  dazzlingly 
beautiful  young  sister.  The  colonel  was  in  a  dilemma ;  and 
it  appears  that  he  thought  his  only  way  out  of  it  was  to 
make  love  to  both. 

The  sequel  of  the  story  is,  that  Colonel  Novena  so 
adroitly  managed  his  addresses  to  these  ladies,  and  gained 
such  power  over  them,  that  neither  dared  disclose  to  the 
other  the  colonel's  engagement  to  her,  each  sister  enjoy- 
ing, in  her  strictly  secret  heart,  the  sense  of  a  sweet  vic- 
tory over  the  other ;  and  in  order  to  not  expose  her  secret 
by  receiving  the  colonel  alone  too  frequently,  often  asking 
the  other's  presence  on  the  colonel's  calls. 

Indeed,  so  fascinated  did  they  become  with  the  colonel, 
that  they  often  visited  his  bachelor's  quarters  together, 
and  there,  in  his  library,  spent  hours  at  a  time  with  him, 
reading,  chatting,  partaking  of  wine,  and  so  forth. 

They  were  almost  without  restriction  in  their  affection- 
ate caressing  of  the  "  dear  colonel "  in  each  other's  pres- 
ence ;  for  what  of  jealousy  should  either  feel  towards  her 
sister,  when  she  held  in  her  heart  the  sacred  truth  that 
she  herself  was  dearer  to  the  colonel  than  her  sister  ?  This 
complication  of  affairs  continued  for  several  months,  the 
parties  meeting  daily.  The  colonel  had,  of  course,  per- 
suaded each  that  the  usual  announcement  of  an  engage- 
ment should  be  foregone  in  this  instance,  for  some  wily, 
but  apparently  good  reason,  which  he  gave  ;  and  the  gos- 
sips were  at  a  loss  to  discover  which  of  the  two  ladies  he 
loved  the  more,  so  they  "  married  "  him  to  neither  for  a 
certainty. 


596  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

But  finally  an  end  came  to  the  duplex  affair,  and  the  sis- 
ters told  the  "  secret  "  to  each  other ;  and  the  colonel  was 
upbraided  by  them  both  one  evening  when  he  called  on 
them.  It  is  said,  however,  that  notwithstanding  the  colonel's 
dishonorable  course,  either  of  the  sisters  would  have  been 
glad  to  secure  him.  But  the  colonel  was  now  in  a  dilennn;i 
again,  out  of  which  there  was  no  such  sweet  escape  as  be- 
fore. The  beautiful  lady  he  did  not  want  as  an  "  incum- 
brance,"  and  the  "  other  charmer  "  could  not  fully  command 
him,  with  all  her  riches,  without  the  society  of  the  more 
brilliant  one  too,  which  ho  knew  he  could  not  have  if  mar- 
ried to  the  former  ;  for  the  colonel  well  knew  what  tyrants 
most  women  are  to  their  husbands  when  they  have  them 
in  their  power,  and  he  preferred  his  freedom  to  the  slavery 
of  a  "  boughten  "  husband's  position. 

The  colonel  was  a  bit  of  a  social  philosopher,  and  often 
"  put  things  "  in  novel  and  clever  ways.  It  was  a  saying 
of  his,  I  was  told,  that  <l  the  condition  of  the  average  hus- 
band is  the  most  comical  and  pitiable  to  be  conceived  —  a 
slave  to  his  wife  or  his  family;  a  creature  subject  to  all 
sorts  of  indignities  at  home,  and  not  allowed  to  go  abroad." 
"  A  model  husband,"  said  he,  "  is  in  these  days  little  more, 
at  best,  than  the  gentlemanly  butler  or  purveyor  for  his 
own  house;  has  the  privilege  of  paying  all  the  bills,  bear- 
ing all  the  burdens,  etc.,  while  his  wife  and  family  feel  as 
'  grateful '  as  pigs  at  their  dinner."  Of  course  the  colonel 
had  in  mind  only  the  wives  and  families  of  fashionable 
circles. 

The  colonel's  weakness  was  for  fl  trading,"  in  all  sorts 
of  ways,  but  especially  in  matters  of  considerable  impor- 
tance, such  as  in  real  estate,  rich  merchandise,  ships,  and 
stocks,  as  far  as  he  could  in  the  last.  He  made  a  good 
deal  of  money,  in  a  manner  which  was  legitimate  enough, 
too,  on  the  outside,  but  which  always  proved  tricky.  For 
example,  going  into  a  place  like  Milwaukie,  Wis.,  he  read- 
ily got  himself  reputed  as  a  man  of  great  wealth ;  would 
contract  to  purchase  three  or  four  adjacent  building  lota 


REAL  ESTATE  SPECULATIONS.          597 

on  some  valuable  site,  at  some  future  time, —  say,  three 
months  thereafter.  —  for  he  always  was  about  to  send  home 
(to  Cuba)  for  his  money.  The  owner  would  enter  into  a 
written  contract  to  convey  the  property  to  Colonel  Xovena, 
or  his  assigns,  at  the  time  named,  for  a  given  sum  for 
each  lot.  It  was  immediately  noised  about  that  the  colonel 
was  going  to  build  a  splendid  mansion  on  one  of  these  lots, 
and  keep  the  rest  for  a  grand  lawn.  Everybody  talked 
about  it,  and  the  colonel,  being  an  architect  as  well  as 
everything  else,  produced  drawings  of  the  intended  stately 
palace.  The  citizens  were  all  very  anxious  to  have  so 
wealthy  and  tasteful  a  man  settle  in  their  midst. 

By  and  by  it  was  announced  that  the  colonel  had  changed 
his  mind.  His  mansion  was  to  be  put  up  at  some  other 
point,  but  upon  two  of  the  building  lots  ho  was  going  to 
erect  an  extensive  block  for  stores,  offices,  and  so  forth, 
and  the  other  two  lots  were  to  be  sold. 

These  he  would  manage  to  sell  for  a  very  considerable 
advance  above  the  price  contracted  for,  as  the  new  block 
was  going  to  make  them  vastly  valuable.  Of  course  the 
purchaser  must  take  them  before  the  time  ran  out ;  other- 
wise the  colonel,  as  he  did  not  then  want  them,  and  scorned 
to  be  a  mere  real  estate  speculator,  would  relinquish  his 
claim  to  them  to  the  owner,  but  since  he  had  gotten  con- 
trol of  them,  might  as  well  ask  something  for  their  in- 
creased value. 

As  a  by-play  in  connection  with  his  various  swindling 
operations,  these  speculations  in  real  estate  served. to  di- 
vert the  colonel,  as  well  as  help  fill  his  pockets.  The 
building  lots  being  well  disposed  of,  the  colonel  could 
afford  to  let  the  original  owner  take  back  the  two  on 
which  the  famous  block  was  to  be  built,  and  the  purcha- 
sers of  the  other  had  only  to  wait  till  somebody  or  other 
should  put  up  the  desired  block,  and  raise  the  value  of 
their  vsites  up  to  the  imaginary  height  to  which  the  colo- 
nel's elegant  and  magnificent  pretences  had  elevated 
them  ;  but  then  the  poor  fellows  might  have  to  wait  years, 


598  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

for  the  colonel's  block  outshone,  by  far,  all  other  possible 
blocks. 

The  colonel  had  a  way  of  ingratiating  himself  with  the 
teachers  of  female  seminaries,  finding  out  who  of  the 
pupils  were  the  children  of  the  wealthiest  parents,  get- 
ting  acquainted  with  the  young  girls,  taking  a  fatherly  in- 
terest in  them,  getting  introduced  to  their  parents,  and 
flattering  them  upon  the  genius  and  beauty  of  their  chil- 
dren, and  at  last  borrowing  very  considerable  sums  (just 
for  temporary  accommodation,  till  he  could  get  remittance 
through  his  New  York  bankers,  of  course)  from  the  de- 
lighted fathers  of  the  beautiful  girls ;  and  it  was  impossible 
to  not  honor  the  colonel's  request  under  such  circum- 
stances. But  the  colonel  had  a  shocking  bad  memory, 
and  always  forgot  these  little  accommodations,  amounting 
to  from  three  hundred  dollars  to  a  thousand  dollars,  ac- 
cording to  how  much  he  had  thought  best,  in  a  given  case, 
to  ask  for. 

In  the  town  of  Elmira,  N.  Y.,  I  think  it  was,  the  colonel 
managed  to  borrow  some  thirty  thousand  dollars,  all  in  the 
space  of  four  months ;  and  when  one  of  the  victims  came 
to  speak  of  the  swindle  to  one  of  his  most  intimate  neigh- 
bors, and  a  cousin  at  that,  I  believe,  he  was  astonished  to 
learn  that  this  person  could  practically  "  sympathize  "  with 
him.  The  colonel  had  professed  to  each  that  he  had  higher 
respect  for  him  than  anybody  else  in  the  village,  and  had, 
therefore,  in  his  extremity,  sought  him  to  confide  in ;  for 
of  alLthings  in  the  world,  he  thought  it  the  greatest  shame 
for  a  man  of  means  to  borrow  money,  he  said,  but  his  prop- 
erties in  Cuba  were  of  such  a  nature  that  his  agents  there 
could  not  always  turn  them  into  money  instantly  on  com- 
mand. 

So  each  of  twenty  or  more  persons,  perhaps,  became 
the  special  and  only  confidant  of  the  colonel ;  the  only  man 
whom  he  would  not  be  ashamed  to  inform  about  his  pres- 
ent "  little  unpleasant  strait."  It  must  have  been  rather 
an  amusing  disclosure  for  the  other  nineteen  when  the 


A  MORAL  DISTINCTION.  599 

twentieth  victim  came  to  expose  his  special  honors,  joys 
and  "  profits  "  to  them.  Nevertheless,  so  engaging  a  man 
was  the  colonel  that  the  most  excited  and  threatening  of 
his  victims  usuallyfcooled  down  presently,  if  he  had  the 
boldness  to  give  the  colonel  "  a  piece  of  his  mind."  This 
illustrates  but  partially  the  consummate  skill  and  address 
of  the  colonel;  and  the  number  of  his  victims  in  many  parts 
of  the  land  was  astonishing.  The  colonel  bought  ships 
even,  or  interests  in  them,  and  disposed  of  the  same,  and 
was  always  far  away  from  the  scene  of  his  last  fraud  very 
speedily.  There  was  no  limit  to  his  audacity. 

Having  gathered  together  a  pretty  large  fortune  here,, 
the  colonel  left  the  United  States,  and  went  to  Canada  ta 
reside,  not  as  Colonel  Novena  to  be  sure,  but  as  "  Sir 
Richard  Murray."  He  might  have  taken  more  money  with 
him  there  than  he  did ;  but  the  colonel  was  almost  as  free 
in  the  use  of  his  money  as  he  was  adroit  in  getting 
it.  In  fact,  he  was  a  philanthropist  in  his  disposition, 
and  aided  a  great  many  poor  people,  particularly  children, 
many  of  whom  he  sent  to  school,  leaving  funds  with  soiue 
worthy  persons  as  trustees,  to  continue  them  at  school. 
There  was  no  element  of  meanness,  in  the  usual  accepta- 
tion of  the  term,  in  the  colonel,  for  all  his  misdeeds  partook 
properly  of  the  nature  of  crimes,  to  greater  or  less  extent. 
At  the  South  the  colonel,  I  am  told,  fought  several  duels,  — 
never  on  his  own  direct  account,  but  for  sundry  "  friends," 
ladies  especially,  —  and  at  New  Orleans,  his  financial 
"  speculations  "  amounted  to  "  something  handsome."  I 
have  been  promised  by  a  friend  a  narrative  of  the  colo- 
nel's exploits  in  New  Orleans  to  be  incorporated  in  this 
article,  but  it  has  not  been  forwarded  to  me,  and  I  must 
now  do  without  it. 

I  remarked  above  that  the  colonel  went  to  reside  in 
Canada  as  "Sir  Richard  Murray."  His  residence  was  in 
Montreal,  but  he  had  a  country-house  about  seven  miles 
out  of  the  city,  where,  in  fact,  he  spent  the  larger  part  of 
his  time,  in  both  winter  and  summer,  and  where,  for  two 
35 


600  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

or  three  years  he  dispensed  an  elegant  hospitality.  His 
splendid  manners  forbade  any  inquiry  into  his  right  to 
wear  a  title,  and  his  knowledge  of  the  English  language 
was  so  perfect,  that  no  one  would  susj^ct  from  his  accent 
his  Castilian  descent. 

I  have  not  been  able  to  learn  that  the  colonel  ever  "  ex- 
ploited "  in  Canada.  The  States  were  his  theatre ;  and 
during  a  residence  of  a  couple  of  years  in  Europe,  he  prac- 
tised his  skilful  "  profession  "  considerably,  I  am  authenti- 
cally informed,  especially  in  England  and  Ireland. 

But  the  colonel  came  to  grief  at  last.  He  had  gotten  a 
little  "  short,"  and  having  left  Canada  for  want  of  means 
to  longer  sustain  his  princely  mode  of  living,  betook  him- 
self to  St.  Louis.  I  have  forgotten  to  say  that  the  colonel 
was  an  expert,  and  usually  very  successful,  gambler,  but  he 
had  no  real  love  for  the  life  of  a  gambler.  There  was 
hazard  enough  in  it,  but  it  was  of  the  tame  kind.  He 
longed  to  do  bolder  things,  and  he  did  them.  But  the 
colonel  had  no  reputation  at  St.  Louis,  and  was  obliged  to 
turn  to  gambling,  and  for  a  few  days  he  was  successful, 
winning  quite  large  sums  of  money,  which  aroused  the 
resident  gamblers  to  conspiracy  against  the  handsome 
stranger,  in  that  place  known  as  Count  Antonelli,  an  Ital- 
ian. The  result  was,  that  the  gamblers  robbed  him  of 
nearly  all  he  had  won,  and  the  colonel  beat  a  retreat  from 
St.  Louis,  and  made  his  way,  by  degrees,  eastward.  Al- 
though he  encountered  several  "  old  friends  "  on  the  way, 
Avhora  he  had,  in  the  years  past,  swindled  out  of  various 
sums,  they  let  him  pass  unheeded,  or  at  most  only  warn- 
ing their  friends  against  him. 

But  the  colonel's  star  had  in  good  measure  become 
dimmed,  he  found,  and  he  made  his  way  to  Washington, 
D.  C.,  where  he  revived  some  old  acquaintanceships,  and 
•created  new  ones,  which  served  him  quite  well  for  a  time. 
But  the  colonel,  finally  playing  a  pretty  severe  swindle 
•npon  a  person  in  high  authority,  and  who  prided  himself 
too  much  on  his  sagacity  and  general  good  sense  to  be 


A  MISSING   NECKLACE.  601 

willing  that  his  fully  in  this  case  be  made  public,  the  vic- 
tim let  him  off,  on  his  agreeing  to  leave  Washington,  and 
'  never  show  his  head  there  again.'  As  the  colonel  could 
thus  escape  a  long  term  of  imprisonment,  he  gladly  ac- 
cepted the  condition,  and  made  the  promise,  which  he 
strictly  fulfilled,  for  he  never  returned  to  that  city. 

The  colonel  made  his  way  from  Washington  to  Saratoga, 
in  the  summer  of  1862,  where  he  made  the  acquaintance 
of  sundry  New  Yorkers,  of  a  class  a  little  below  the  most 
distinguished,  the  colonel  stepping  down  a  little  from  his 
usual  dignity  and  carefulness  as  to  the  selection  of  hia 
society.  With  this  class  he  "  profited  "  considerably,  and 
it  is  said  that. in  the  winter  of  '62  and  '63  he  managed  to 
do  a  good  business  in  various  "  speculative  "  ways  in  New 
York,  through  introductions  which  he  obtained  from  his 
new-made  friends  of  '62.  However,  it  is  to  be  remarked 
here,  that  at  Saratoga  he  had  a  new  alias,  that  of  General 
Alverosa,  of  Palermo,  an  intimate  friend  of  Garibaldi,  but 
who  had  been  educated  in  England,  which  accounted  for 
his  excellent  understanding  of  the  English  language. 

In  tracing  the  colonel,  by  facts  of  his  own  confession, 
for  which  facts  I  was  indebted,  in  some  measure,  to  the 
late  Dr.  Jeremiah  Cummings,  of  St.  Stephen's  Church,  and 
through  things  stated  by  others,  I  find  spaces  of  months, 
which  I  have  to  skip  over.  How  the  colonel  got  on  to  his 
last  year  of  1864, 1  hardly  know ;  but  in  the  summer  of  that 
year  the  colonel,  it  seems,  became  hard  pushed.  He  had 
wearied  out  such  few  of  his  friends  as  he  had  not  swindled, 
and  was  living  from  hand  to  mouth,  dressing  well  yet,  and 
making  some  show  of  means,  but  unsuccessful  at  the  gam- 
bling-table, and  elsewhere. 

Finally,  there  was  one  day  found  missing  from  a  house 
in  West  19th  Street,  where  the  colonel  (rather,  general  at 
this  time)  boarded,  a  diamond  necklace,  belonging  to  a 
distant  relative  of  Alexander  Hamilton,  of  revolutionary 
fame.  The  necklace  was  very  valuable  intrinsically,  but 
a  part  of  it  was  composed  of  diamonds,  which  had  been 


602  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

presented  to  Mrs.  Hamilton  by  some  admirers  of  General 
Hamilton,  English  residents  of  some  one  of  the  West  In- 
dia Islands,  I  forget  which,  on  which  General  Hamilton 
was  born.  These  had  been  presented  to  her  out  of  respect 
to  the  general's  great  statesmanship,  etc.,  he  from  republi- 
can scruples  having  refused  to  accept  them  while  occupy- 
ing an  official  position  under  the  government. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  my  special  attention  was  called 
to  Colonel  Novena.  I  had  known  of  him  through  the 
press,  as  I  hear  of  other  great  men,  some  of  whom  one 
chances  to  meet,  perhaps,  but  the  majority  of  whom  he 
knows  "  at  a  distance."  There  was  great  search  made  in 
the  house  for  the  diamond  necklace ;  and  upon  no  one  in 
the  place  had  a  ray  of  suspicion  fallen.  It  was  euch  a 
mystery,  in  short,  as  to  where  that  necklace  had  gone, 
under  the  circumstances  of  its  loss,  that  no  one  there 
conceived  it  possible  that  it  would  ever  be  found  ;  and 
after  the  search  in  which  everybody  in  the  house  took 
part  (and  everybody  was  glad  to  have  his  own  rooms 
searched),  it  was  thought  preposterous  to  do  ought  else 
than  to  sit  down  quietly,  and  "  give  it  up  "  forever. 

But  the  mere  fact  that  to  a  portion  of  the  diamonds  was 
attached  a  sort  of  historic  fame,  heightened,  too,  by  the 
considerations  of  family  affection  and  pride,  induced  the 
owners  —  (for  the  necklace  was  the  joint  property  of  a 
lady,  and  a  gentleman  who  had  succeeded  to  his  deceased 
mother's  interest  therein)  —  to  make  some  little  effort  to 
hunt  out  the  necklace.  They  had  thought  that  nobody 
who  might  have  taken  it  would  offer  it  for  sale  to  the  im- 
portant jewellers  of  the  city,  and  it  was  too  valuable  to  be 
purchased  by  the  smaller  establishments.  So  they  had 
conceived  that  the  diamonds  would  be  taken  from  their 
mountings,  and  sold  separately,  so  as  not  to  be  identified. 
This  thought  had  seized  the  owners  at  the  time  the  h--- 
was  discovered,  and  had  become,  not  a  mere  opinion  with 
them,  but  a  sort  of  conviction.  So  it  was  that  they  at 


A  BIT   OF   ILL-GRACE.  603 

once  gave  up  in  despair  when  the  search  at  the  house 
failed  of  the  hoped-for  result. 

I  was  visited  by  the  gentleman  partner  in  the  necklace, 
who  placed  the  matter  before  me  with  all  the  facts  he  was 
possessed  of,  and  I  told  him  that  I  felt  very  certain  that 
some  resident  of  the  house  had  taken  the  lost  treasures ; 
but  it  would  be  best  for  me  to  call  upon  him  there,  and 
study  the  situation  of  the  rooms,  etc.  An  hour  of  the  next 
day  was  fixed  upon,  and  I  called ;  had  opportunity  to  ex- 
amine the  various  rooms,  and  their  relative  situations.  I 
found  that  no  ordinary  thief,  however  skilled,  would  bo 
apt  to  run  the  hazard  of  penetrating  the  rooms  from  which 
the  necklace  was  taken ;  and,  besides  that,  it  must  have 
been  somebody  conversant  with  the  place  in  which  the 
necklace  was  deposited,  or  somebody  who  had  been  care- 
fully instructed  by  some  knowing  one,  to  be  able  to  steal 
the  necklace  at  the  time  it  was  taken ;  for  it  was  missed  not 
a  half  hour  after  it  had  been  taken  from  its  case  and  re- 
deposited  there  by  the  lady  half-owner.  I  made  careful 
inquiry  about  each  of  the  boarders,  and  could  fix  my  sus- 
picions upon  no  one  in  particular ;  yet  I  came  to  the  con- 
elusion  that  it  must  be  one  of  two  of  whom  I  was  told, 
Colonel  Novena  being  one,  or,  rather,  General  Alverosa, 
his  alias  then. 

The  owners  of  the  necklace  would  hear  nothing  against 
the  general ;  he  was  the  last  person  in  the  world  to  be 
suspected.  Indeed,  they  were  so  much  affronted,  and  ex- 
pressed themselves  so  emphatically,  bordering  on  bad 
manners,  at  my  suggesting  the  general  as  the  possible 
thief,  that  I  was  obliged  to  say,  very  firmly,  that  unless 
they  allowed  me  to  take  my  own  way  about  the  matter,  I 
would  not  go  a  step  further.  They  allowed  me  to  take  my 
own  course  ;  but  it  was  with  ill  grace  they  did  so,  after  all ; 
for  the  general  had  made  himself  a  favorite  of  this  couple, 
especially.  He  spent  much  of  his  time  in  their  rooms 
when  at  home.  Indeed,  it  was  this  fact,  in  a  measure, 
which'  gave  me  a  suspicion  of  him.  Besides,  they  repre- 


604  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

sented  him  as  so  perfect  a  character,  that  I  confess  I  had 
fears  of  him  from  that  fact  too ;  for  I  have  found  the  most 
wily  rogues  among  men  (and  particularly  among  wo- 
men) to  be  those  who  enjoyed  the  finest  reputations. 
These  make  a  good  reputation  a  part  of  their  "  stock  in 
trade."  But  this  was  not  all  that  influenced  me  in  my 
suspicions  of  the  general.  These  parties,  who  had  known 
him  for  quite  a  long  period  of  time,  knew  nothing  of  his 
business  pursuits,  or  if  the  general  had  any  business  at  all ; 
and  only  judged,  at  one  time,  that  he  might  be  a  lawyer, 
from  something  he  happened  to  say ;  at  another,  that  he 
might  be  a  broker  in  Wall  Street,  and  so  on. 

But  this  was  no  occasion  of  suspicion  to  them,  for  they 
would  have  scorned  to  seem  to  wish  to  know  anything  of 
a  gentleman's  private  life  or  business.  But  to  me  there 
was  ground  of  suspicion  in  all  this ;  and  I  concluded  to 
take  board  at  the  house,  and  study  the  general,  work  my- 
self into  his  good  graces,  and  learn  his  places  of  resort, 
etc.  The  owners  of  the  necklace  were  finally  convinced 
that  this  was  the  true  way,  and  were  ready  to  pay  my  ex- 
penses for  a  given  time. .  I  provided  myself  with  neater 
wearing  apparel  than  I  usually  wore,  and  took  board  at 
the  house  as  "  Mr.  Henry  Inman,  artist." 

Fortunately,  one  of  my  old  school-fellows  waa  both  an 
excellent  portrait  and  landscape  painter,  and  had  his  office 
on  Broadway.  I  told  him  what  I  was  up  to  ;  and  a  sign, 
new,  but  made  to  look  a  little  old,  and  bearing  my  assumed 
name,  was  placed  on  his  door ;  and  a  few  of  his  sketches, 
some  finished,  others  in  process  of  completion,  were  as- 
signed to  me  to  talk  about  as  my  own,  if  I  had  occasion  to 
introduce  a c special  friend  there.  So  that  when  "Mr. 
Henry  Inman,  artist,"  secured  board  at  the  house  in  West 
19th  Street,  he  also  had  a  studio  to  boast  of. 

I  had  selected  this  disguise  of  artist,  because,  in  earlier 
day-  I  had  possessed  a  little  talent  at  drawing,  and  could 
paint  indifferently  well,  and  had,  to  considerable  extent, 
cultivated  a  knowledge  of  the  great  masters,  and  could 


PROFITABLY   "SURPRISED."  605 

talk,  as  I  was  pleased  to  believe,  decently  well  upon  artis- 
tic subjects  ;  and  I  had  learned  that  General  Alverosa  as- 
sumed to  be  a  great  connoisseur  of  art. 

Being  established  at  my  boarding-house,  I  easily  made 
the  general's  acquaintance,  and  in  less  than  a  week  had 
entertained  him  at  my  studio  ;  gotten  so  well  "  into  his 
good  graces,"  that  he  had  no  hesitancy  in  taking  me  to 
sundry  of  his  places  of  resort,  gambling  rooms,  etc.,  though 
he  did  not  gamble  much ;  and  had  found  out  that  the 
general  loved  the  fair  sex,  if  not  wisely,  yet  too  well, 
and  at  last  begun  to  get  a  clew  to  his  career.  But  how  I 
was  to  learn  more  of  him  directly  through  himself,  was  a 
puzzle ;  and  so  I  set  about  watching  the  general's  course 
nights,  after  leaving  me.  I  found  that  he  frequented  a 
house  of  a  peculiar  nature  in  29th  Street ;  that  the  colo- 
nel went  there  every  night,  but  that  he  usually  got  home 
some  time  towards  midnight,  staying  away  all  night  only 
seldom. 

Putting  together  all  I  knew  of  the  general,  I  came  to 
the  conclusion  that  he  was  indebted  to  some  fair  lady  for 
a  part,  at  least,  of  his  support ;  and  so  I  managed  to  get 
myself  introduced  to  the  house  in  question  (for  it  was  one 
of  those  select  places  of  pleasure  which  boast  of  their 
exclusiveness  and  "  high  respectability  "  ) ;  and  on  my  first 
visit  there  encountered  the  general,  who,  finding  me  "  sur- 
prised "  at  being  caught  there  by  him,  and  on  my  begging 
him  not  to  expose  me  at  our  boarding-house,  relaxed  what 
little  restraint  existed  on  his  part  towards  me,  and  took 
nie  into  his  confidence.  The  keeper  of  the  house,  an  ele- 
gant, courtly-looking  woman,  was  his  especial  friend  —  his 
wife,  practically  speaking ;  and  I  now  could  better  under- 
stand what  motive  might  have  impelled  the  general,  if  he 
were  indeed  the  thief,  to  steal  the  necklace. 

I  need  not,  indeed  I  should  not,  at  any  rate,  go  into  de- 
tails in  regard  to  how  I  found  that  Madame  Alverosa  was 
in  possession  of  that  necklace  ;  but  so  I  found,  and  I  had 
but  little  trouble  in  recovering  it  from  her.  The  general 


606  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

had  told  her  that  it  had  belonged,  for  nearly  a  hundred 
years,  in  his  family ;  and  although  it  was  a  brilliant  affair, 
and  she  was  specially  fond  of  displaying  her  jewelry,  yet 
she  rarely  wore  this,  regarding  it  as  something  sacred ; 
and  it  was  only  by  a  little  strategy  which  could  not  be 
excused  in  anybody  but  a  detective,  that  1  found  out  she 
had  the  necklace ;  and  it  was  not  till  it  was  safely  in 
my  possession,  beyond  the  possibility  of  her  immediate- 
ly reclaiming  it,  that  I  let  her  know  I  had  it.  When  she 
came  to  know  the  facts,  she  affected  great  indignation  at, 
and  disgust  for  the  general ;  but  the  woman  loved  him, 
and  she  implored  me  to  let  him  have  a  chance  to  leave  the 
boarding-house  in  West  19th  Street  before  I  should  re- 
store the  necklace  to  the  owners ;  and  she  said  she  would 
teach  the  general  a  lesson  of  honesty ;  that  he  had  no 
need  of  resorting  to  crime ;  and  that  he  had  only  been 
tempted  to  steal  the  necklace  out  of  his  love  for  her ;  he 
wanted  to  see  her  wear  and  enjoy  it.  Such  was  her  gen- 
erous, and  probably  correct  interpretation  of  the  matter. 
She  offered,  too,  to  pay  all  the  expenses  the  owners  had 
been  to  in  ferreting  out  the  necklace,  my  board,  foes,  etc., 
which  she  insisted  on  paying  just  doubly  for,  and  which 
she  did  pay. 

In  view  of  what  I  had  learned  of  this  woman's  charities, 
and  her  general  disposition,  I  consented  to  her  request. 
She  maintained  no  less  than  five  orphan  children  at  different 
schools,  paying  all  their  expenses  ;  frequently  gave  excel- 
lent marriage  outfits  to  such  of  her  girls  as,  desiring  to 
reform,  had  chances  to  marry  (a  not  unfrequent  thing  in 
New  York) ;  and  would  not  encourage  any  girl  to  stay  in 
her  house ;  indeed,  constantly  besought  them  all  to  reform, 
and  seek  some  other  mode  of  livelihood  ;  and  not  seldom 
did  she  succeed.  But  there  are  some  of  those  "unfor- 
tunates "  to  whom  any  other  mode  of  life  would  be  tame 
and  intolerable.  These  the  Madame  disciplined  into  decen- 
cy of  deportment,  and  even  attended  to  their  education  in 
books  and  music,  etc.,  in  order  to  render  them  as  compe- 


A  PASSIVE   COLONEL.  607 

tent  as  possible  to  take  care  of  themselves  when  the  days 
of  their  physical  attractiveness  should  have  passed.  She 
taught  them  economy,  too,  making  each  keep  account  with 
some  savings  bank. 

In  view  of  Madame's  good  qualities,  I  was  disposed  to 
respect  her  love  for  the  general,  and  consented,  as  I  have 
said,  to  let  him  withdraw  from  the  boarding-house  in  19th 
Street  before  I  disclosed  to  the  owners  that  I  had  the 
necklace  in  my  possession.  When  I  returned  the  neck- 
lace, and  reported  who  had  taken  it,  and  gave  the  recital 
of  my  interview  with  the  general  at  last,  when  I  advised 
him  to  withdraw  from  the  house,  the  reader  may  essay  to, 
but  he  can  hardly  imagine  the  astonishment  which  was 
expressed  by  the  owners  of  the  necklace  and  the  house- 
hold when  they  came  to  learn  the  facts. 

The  general,  of  course,  "  took  things  easy  "  when  he 
found  that  I  had  trapped  him,  so  far  as  I  was  concerned ;  but 
he  was  greatly  mortified  in  spirit  to  think  that  Madame  A. 
had  learned  of  the  theft,  especially  in  view  of  his  roman- 
tic story  to  her  about  the  long  possession  of  the  necklace 
in  his  family.  He  at  first  declared  he  would  never  go  back 
to  her,  and  avowed  to  me  that  this  was  the  only  crime  he 
had  ever  committed  ;  but  when  I  told  him  that  I  could  not 
consent  to  his  leaving  me  with  the  impression  that  he  had 
deceived  me,  and  opened  his  eyes  to  many  things  which 
had  been  disclosed  to  me  of  his  career  by  my  fellow-de- 
tectives, with  some  of  whom  during  the  time  of  my  special 
study  of  him  I  was  in  concert,  the  general  (whom  at  the 
time,  by  the  way  of  the  better  assuring  him  of  my  accu- 
rate knowledge  of  his  character  I  addressed  as  "  Colonel 
Novena  "),  became  very  passive,  and  declared  to  me  that  if 
I  would  not  further  expose  him,  he  would  leave  New  York 
altogether,  as  soon  as  he  could  go. 

Eventually  he  did  leave  ;  but  not  before  he  was  fully 
reconciled  to  Madame  A.,  who,  as  she  told  me,  read  him  a 
moral  homily  which  would  last  him  for  his  life.  And  went 
to  Canada,  where  she  followed  him,  on  a  pleasure  excur- 


608  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

sion.  In  about  two  weeks  after  their  meeting  in  Cana- 
da, a  trip  was  planned  with  some  friends  through  the 
Thousand  Isles,  and  down  the  rapids  of  the  St.  Law- 
rence. Madame  A.  was  taken  suddenly  ill,  but  not  serious- 
ly, and  staid  over  at  a  farmer's  house,  insisting  on  the 
"  general's  "  going  with  the  rest ;  and  overcoming  his  gal- 
lant desire  to  linger  with  her,  by  representing  to  him  that 
he  would  spoil  the  pleasure  of  all  the  rest  by  tarrying  be- 
hind. So  the  Colonel  Novena  and  the  "  General  Alverosa," 
with  all  his  other  characters  wrapped  up  in  one  individu- 
ality, went  on  with  the  party,  —  which  was  the  last  time 
Madame  A.  ever  saw  him  alive. 

Proceeding  down  the  rapids  in  different  boats,  the  party 
had  gotten  nearly  through  all  safely,  when  some  mishap 
occurred  to  the  boat  which  bore  "  Colonel  Novena,"  and 
it  was  dashed  to  pieces  in  the  rocks,  he  receiving  so  se- 
vere a  shock  that,  although  an  excellent  swimmer,  it  was 
said,  yet  ho  was  powerless  to  save  himself,  and  was 
drowned.  His  body  was  recovered  the  next  day ;  and 
Madame  Alverosa  spared  no  pains  in  honoring  his  memory. 
The  body  was  taken  to  New  York,  and  thence  to  Green- 
wood Cemetery,  where  it  now  reposes  beneath  a  stately 
monument,  which,  however,  bears  neither  the  name  of 
"  General  Alverosa,"  nor  that  of  "  Colonel  Novena,"  but  a 
name  equally  euphonic,  and  certainly  nearer  the  "  Gen- 
eral's "  true  one,  if  I  am  rightly  informed ;  but  Madame 
Alverosa  is  entitled  to  my  silence  on  this  point,  for  she 
asked  it,  and  received  my  promise  in  response. 

And  here,  in  justice  to  the  character  of  woman,  —  to  the 
sex  whom  we  love  to  honor, —  and  in  praise  of  an  individual 
of  that  sex,,who  by  untoward  circumstances,  was  led  into 
a  course  of  life  so  base  as  that  which  Madame  A.  long  pur- 
sued, let  it  be  recorded  that  a  short  time  after  the  "  Gen- 
eral's "  death  Madame  A.  abandoned  her  vile  profession, 
sold  out  the  house  she  occupied  and  owned,  with  the  con- 
dition in  the  deed  that  it  should  never  again  be  occupied 
or  let  for  a  like  purpose  ;  established  a  fund,  in  the  hands 


"THE   BEST   OF  MEN."  609 

of  proper  trustees,  for  the  aid  of  a  certain  class  of  unfor- 
tunates, and  withdrew  to  another  part  of  the  city,  where 
she  leads  the  life  of  a  respectable  woman  during  the  win- 
ter. Her  summers  are  spent  at  her  elegant  country  seat, 
near  one  of  the  most  beautiful  villages  in  New  Jersey. 
And  the  Madame  has  declared  to  mo  that  of  all  her  varied 
experiences  in  life,  that  which  gave  her  the  most  pain  was 
the  discovery  that  the  general  had  stolen  the  necklace. 
She  had  supposed  that  he  gambled,  and  she  was  far  from 
being  unsuspicious  that  he  might  commit  forgeries  some- 
times, or  had  done  so  in  his  career  before  she  made  his 
acquaintance  ;  but  all  this  she  looked  upon  as  in  the  nature, 
somewhat,  of  business. 

"  Wall  Street  gambles,"  she  used  to  say ; — "  Wall  Street 
commits  its  forgeries,  and  practises  false  pretences  all  the 
while,  and  men  call  these  things  there  respectable.  Why 
may  not  others  gamble  on  a  smaller  scale,  and  practise 
their  smaller  cunning?  " 

Thus  she  justified  the  general  against  her  own  suspi- 
cions ;  but  she  could  never  get  over  the  theft  of  the  neck- 
lace by  the  "  clever  man ;  "  and  one  day,  when  she  was  de- 
ploring his  conduct,  and  I  suggested  that  she  might  have 
the  image  of  the  necklace  cut  upon  his  monument,  as  a  per- 
petual reminder  to  her,  when  she  visited  the  grave,  of  the 
wickedness  in  the  heart  of  "  the  best  of  men,"  the  Madame 
shrugged  her  shoulders  with  a  halfopproving  smile,  and 
said,  — 

"  Well,  you  may  joke,  if  you  like,  but  I  know  something 
of  men ;  they  are  all  bad,  the  best  of  them ;  and  General 
Alverosa,  with  all  his  faults  and  his  crimes,  was  a  better  man 
than  any  other  my  eyes  ever  rested  upon;"  and  she  looked 
me  curiously  in  the  face  at  that,  as  I  bade  her  good  day, 
and  went  away,  thinking  that,  perhaps,  I  was  properly 
enough  rebuked,  and  that,  may  be,  no  better  man  had  lived, 
as  surely  no  more  remarkably  gifted,  elegant,  and  strange 
one,  than  "  Colonel  Novena,"  had  I  ever  met. 


CIRCUMSTANTIAL  EVIDENCE:  A  KNOT 
STILL  UNTIED. 


A  ROBBERY  —  ONE  OF  THE  FEMALE  ATTACHES  OF  THE  GREAT  KOSSCTH  — 
A  WIDOW  LADY  OF  RANK  IN  HUNGARY KOSSUTH'S  SISTER  —  A  BOARD- 
ING HOUSE  AT  NEWARK,  N.  J.,  AND  ITS  INMATES SUNDRY  FACTS  AND 

CONSIDERATIONS  —  BEAUTY  WINS  —  AN  INVESTIGATION  —  SERVANTS  EX- 
AMINED   THE  PATENT-ROOF  MAKER "  TRACING  "  A  MAN  —  A  HOLLOW 

WALKING-STICK  WITH  MONEY  IN  IT  —  NO  CLEW  YET  —  A  PATHETIC  HH-.N- 

DER  —  REVELATIONS  IN  DREAMS  —  A  BIT  OF  PAPER  TELLS  A  STORY 

AN  IDENTIFICATION  —  THIEF   ARRESTED  —  A  SETTLEMENT  MADE,  WITH 

CONDITIONS A  TRIUMPHAL  VISIT  TO  THE  WIDOW  —  A  "WHITE  LIE," 

AND  AN  ANNOUNCEMENT DOUBTING  —  PERFECT  EVIDENCE  SOMETIMES 

IMPERFECT THE  UNSOLVED  PROBLEM  }  WHO  DID  THE  ROBBERY  ? 

IN  August,  1858  (so  the  notes  in  my  diary  of  that  year 
say,  but  somehow  it  seems  to  mo  as  if  it  were  more  than 
ten  years  before),  I  was  waited  upon  by  a  beautiful  Hun- 
garian lady,  residing  at  Newark,  X.  J.,  to  see  if  I  could 
render  her  any  aid  in  ferreting  out  the  thief  who  had 
robbed  her  of  eight  hundred  and  forty  dollars.  She  was 
a  most  charming  lady,  and  with  her  pitiable  story  won  all 
my  sympathies.  She  came  to  the  country  with  the  sister 
of  the  great  Magyar  leader,  Kossuth,  which  sister  was  at 
the  time,  as  I  understood  the  story,  teaching  a  select 
school  in  Xewark,  and  the  lady  who  called  upon  me  had 
been  a  teacher  under  her  for  a  while. 

She  was  very  accomplished,  but  for  some  reason  had 
left  her  vocation  as  a  teacher,  and  gone  to  making  gold- 
lace  goods  for  some  firm  in  New  York,  who  were  paying 
her  larger  wages  than  she  could  make  at  teaching.  (So 
much  more  ready  is  the  world  to  pay  well  for  the  brilliants 

cio 


THE   WIDOW'S   HOUSEHOLD.  Gil 

which  sparkle  by  the  reflection  of  light  from  their  surface, 
than  for  brilliance  of  mind,  which  is  a  light  unto  itself, 
and  betokens  in  its  possessor  a  wealth  beyond  that  of 
rubies  and  pearls.)  She  was  very  artistic,  and  in  her  hap- 
pier days  had  beguiled  her  time  in  learning  many  little 
arts,  which,  in  her  exile  and  poverty  in  America,  she  turned 
to  good  practical  account. 

Her  lace-work  she  did  at  home,  and  she  kept  two  or 
three  boarders  besides,  generally,  together  with  an  Hun- 
garian servant,  a  sort  of  slave,  or  attach^  of  her  father's 
house  at  home,  and  whom  she  felt  obliged  to  watch  over, 
and  an  English  girl.  Her  boarders  were  two  Hungarians 
at  the  time  I  made  her  acquaintance,  and  a  middle-aged 
American,  from  the  West.  One  of  the  former  was  a  law- 
yer, having  his  office  at  No.  5  Beekman  Street,  New  York, 
and  '*'  dragging  along,"  doing  a  little  business  in  New  York, 
and  a  little  also  in  Newark  ;  a  man  of  ability,  and  speaking 
the  English  language  well.  I  think  he  had,  at  one  time, 
been  Kossuth's  confidential  secretary ;  at  any  rate,  he  was 
quite  distinguished  for  something  in  the  Hungarian  revo- 
lution. It  was  at  his  suggestion  that  the  lady  had  called 
on  me,  and  when  she  came  to  describe  him,  —  for  I  had 
never  seen  him,  he  having  simply  heard  of  me  through  a 
brother  lawyer,  in  whose  office  he  occupied  a  desk,  —  I 
at  first  suspected  him  of  the  theft  in  question.  Another 
boarder  was  a  music  teacher,  who  got  on  poorly  enough, 
and  who,  had  it  not  been  that  some. relative  in  Hungary 
occasionally -sent  him  a  remittance,  would  hardly  have 
been  able  to  pay  his  board  bill,  which  was,  I  believe,  but 
five  and  a  half,  or  six  dollars  a  week. 

These  were  comparatively  old  boarders.  The  third  one 
was  a  new  comer ;  that  is,  he  had  been  with  the  widow 
about  three  months.  He  dressed  pretty  well,  and  repre- 
sented himself  as  the  manufacturer  of  patent  roofs,  and  as 
having  a  business  office  on  the  corner  of  Bowery  and  Sec- 
ond Street. 

This  was  all  the  widow  could  then  tell  me  about  them. 


612  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

Her  husband  had  died  about  two  )'ears  before,  after  some 
years  of  illness ;  and  a  little  daughter  and  a  son  had  died 
before  him,  and  not  long  after  her  arrival  in  this  country ; 
and  the  burden  of  their  and  his  illness  and  funeral  ex- 
penses had  fallen  upon  her.  Saddened  by  her  misfortunes 
here,  and  ever  sighing  for  the  "  Fatherland,"  she  had  been 
resolutely  at  work,  since  her  husband's  death,  to  accumu- 
late enough  to  return  to  Hungar}r  with,  and  also  to  buy  a 
little  cottage  where  she  had  spent  most  of  her  early  child- 
hood's hours  with  her  nurse,  and  which  was  situated  near 
the  confines  of  the  great  park  in  which  stood  her  father's 
palace — a  romantic  spot,  which  she  seemed  to  worship 
with  her  whole  soul,  now  that  her  sweetest  treasures  were 
gone.  Her  description  of  the  dear  old  cottage  and  its  sur- 
roundings was  glowing,  and  even  pathetic.  Her  father 
had  been  a  rebel  officer,  and  his  estates  were  confiscated 
and  sold,  but  sold  in  divisions,  it  seemed,  and  some  rela- 
tives had  succeeded  to  the  possession  of  the  cottage. 
This,  she  was  sure,  she  could  buy  for  no  very  large  sum. 
There  would  she  go,  and  live,  and  die.  That  was  her 
widowhood's  ambition,  and  she  cheerfully  toiled,  early  and 
late,  to  achieve  its  realization.  She  had  paid  some  debts, 
which  remained  unpaid  at  the  death  of  her  husband ; 
had  supported  herself  neatly  and  comfortably,  and  aided, 
to  considerable  extent,  not  a  few  of  her  unfortunate  coun- 
trymen, the  old  attache's  of  Kossuth,  but  had  saved  about 
eleven  hundred  dollars,  inclusive  of  the  eight  hundred  and 
forty  which  had  been  stolen  from  her ;  and  the  loss  of  the 
latter  was  to  her  a  most  heavy  blow. 

She  was  one  of  those  brave,  unflinching  souls,  who  do 
and  dare  on  forever,  without  giving  up  in  despair  to,  no 
matter  how  untoward  a  fate ;  but  while  she  uttered  no 
childish  complaint,  I  could  see  that  the  loss  oppressed  her 
very  seriously.  She  said  to  me,  indeed,  that  it  was  very 
discouraging,  and  that  she  sometimes  thought  that  she 
would  give  up  the  further  struggle  of  earning  her  way 
back  to  her  old  home  and  purchasing  the  cottage,  but  set- 


A   "TRIFLE."  613 

tie  down  here,  and  only  visit  the  old  spot  sometime  —  but 
to  do  so  would  be  distasteful. 

This  was  all  enigmatic  to  me,  and  of  course  I  did  not 
ask  her  to  explain  ;  but  I  learned  afterwards,  what  1  pre- 
sume was  its  solution,  that  a  wealthy  widower,  of  some 
political  distinction  as  well  as  literary  character,  and  liv- 
ing at  Morristown,  N.  J.,  had  offered  the  widow  his  hand, 
and  heart  perhaps :  but  such  men  do  not  often  give  away 
their  hearts.  They  buy  wives  with  their  money,  and  treat 
them  as  their  goods  and  chattels  thereafter ;  which  is  a 
convenient  way  of  doing  things,  and  does  not  wear  upon 
the  purchaser's  soul. 

But  Madame  K.  (the  widow),  who  admired  the  man  in 
some  respects,  had  learned  the  value  of  a  great,  noble  love 
too  well  to  even  trifle  with  her  soul  in  this  regard,  and 
could  not  consent  to  accept  the  wealthy  widower's  offer. 
In  view  of  the  fact  of  this  offer,  she  suffered  from  the  loss 
of  her  money  more  than  she  otherwise  would  have  done ; 
for  she  was  proud  to  have  the  widower,  as  well  as  every- 
body else,  know  that  she  was  self-reliant  and  successful ; 
and  to  be  successful,  it  is  necessary  to  be  cautious  and 
prudent  in  all  things ;  and  the  widow  had  not  been  pru- 
dent in  the  disposal  of  her  money.  Indeed,  she  had  lost 
it  through  a  sort  of  unpardonable  carelessness,  or  rather 
lack  of  caution,  and  this  vexed  her  not  a  little. 

My  sympathies  were  greatly  enlisted  in  behalf  of  the 
beautiful  widow;  and  without  being  willing  to  acknowledge 
that  my  heart  was  touched  by  her  facial  beauty  (fur  where 
is  the  man  in  the  world  who  would  not  scorn  to  be  thought 
susceptible  to  such  a  "trifle"?),  I  do  confess  that  the 
widow's  charming  address  and  manners  won  me  over  to 
her  cause  with  a  force  which  I  thought  a  little  peculiar, 
and  I  resolved  to  do  all  I  could  to  hunt  up  the  thief,  and 
find  the  money,  and  perhaps  not  charge  the  beautiful 
widow  a  cent  for  my  services  (if  I  must  confess  the  whole 
right  here). 

Armed  with  such  high  resolve,  I  went  over  to  Madame 


614  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

| 

K.'s  house  the  next  day  to  tea,  the  time  when  she  would 
have  returned  from  her  necessary  business  trip  that  day 
to  the  gold-lace  house  for  which  she  wrought ;  and  found 
her  there  ready  to  receive  me,  and  point  out  the  place 
where  she  had  kept  the  money  stolen.  1  should  say  here, 
that  the  theft  had  been  committed  five  days  before,  and 
some  effort  had  been  made  on  the  part  of  Madame  K.  to 
discover  a  clew  to  the  thief. 

Madame  K.  had,  in  her  sitting-room,  a  carious  old  "  sec- 
retary," which  had  been  brought  out  from  Hungary  by 
some  exiles,  and  which  —  since  it  exactly  resembled  one 
in  her  father's  library  or  studio,  and  at  which  she  had  so 
often  sitten  and  wrought  out  her  lessons,  written  her 
school-girl  "  compositions,"  and  made  her  early  efforts  in 
epistolary  graces  —  she  had  bought.  This  secretary  had 
close-locking  double  doors,  in»each  of  which  was,  as  if  it 
were  itself  a  panel,  a  mirror,  as  a  middle  piece,  with 
plates  of  deftly  chased  glass  above  each  mirror ;  and  the 
glasses  were  opaque,  so  that  the  doors  might,  in  one 
sense,  have  been  said  to  be  solid.  Indeed,  1  think  the 
whole  mirror  and  ornamental  glass  plates  were  backed  by 
a  panel  of  wood. 

The  secretary  was  a  queer  compound  of  strength,  and 
more  or  less  bad  taste,  as  well  as  about  the  same  quantity 
of  good  taste.  The  inner  work  was  all  curious,  —  sly 
boxes ;  boxes  within  boxes,  etc.,  and  the  faces  of  each 
carved  with  the  heads  of  lions,  tigers,  and  so  forth,  of  the 
natural  order,  as  well  as  with  all  sorts  of  things  of  a  mys- 
tic nature,  as  well  as  some  never  thought  of  before  save 
by  the  special  carver  of  these  special  faces.  Everything 
about  it  looked  secure,  but,  alas  !  it  would  not  protect  its 
contents  against  a  cunning  thief.  But  I  saw  that  it  must 
have  been  somebody  who  was  somewhat  acquainted  with 
the  interior  of  the  secretary  to  have  readily  abstracted 
any  of  its  contents  without  disturbing  things,  in  the  short 
space  of  time  between  the  discovery  of  the  loss  and  the 
fact  of  the  presence  of  the  money  there,  just  a  little  before ; 


THE   TOKN   LETTER.  C15 

for  I  had  determined  matters  so  far  as  to  learn  this  point, 
namely,  that  the  money  had  been  taken  from  a  purse  in  a 
certain  drawer,  and  the  purse  itself  left. 

The  money  consisted  of  bank  bills  principally,  with  fifty 
dollars  in  gold — two  tens  and  six  five-dollar  pieces.  This 
drawer  had  a  peculiar  lock,  a  part  of  which  turned  around 
three  times  before  the  key  could  drive  the  bolt,  so  that  the 
person  unlocking  it  must  have  had  time  to  study  this,  or 
had  known  it  before.  There  was  the  outer  key,  too,  the 
key  of  the  secretary's  doors.  On  inquiry,  I  found  that 
this  key  was  hung  up  on  a  little  tack  at  the  back  of  tlvj 
secretary.  It  might  almost  as  well  have  been  left  in  the 
lock.  The  lock  of  the  doors,  too,  was  peculiar,  and  only 
the  smallest  of  keys  could  open  it,  and  it  would  have  been 
difficult  to' pick.  Probably  somebody  who  knew  where  to 
find  the  koy  had  opened  it. 

The  result  of  my  investigation  was  the  conviction  that 
some  resident  of  the  house,  or  some  frequent  visitor,  had 
taken  the  money ;  so  I  asked  Madame  K.  to  call  up  the 
younger  servant.  The  old  one  was  beyond  all  possible 
suspicion ;  and  I  convinced  myself  that  either  the  servant 
was  guiltless,  or  that  if  guilty  we  could  never  prove  her  so, 
unless  by  chance  we  should  find  the  money  on  her ;  so  I 
had  arranged,  before  her  coming  in,  to  be  writing  at  a 
table,  and  while  in  conversation  with  her,  of  such  a  style 
that  she  could  not  possibly  conceive  that  AVC  had  the  re- 
motest suspicion  of  her,  I  asked  her,  in  a  careless  way,  to 
hand  me  some  writing  paper  out  of  the  desk,  and  the 
bungling  mode  in  which  she  managed  the  key  of  that 
peculiar  lock  convinced  rne  that  she  did  not  take  the 
money,  unless  when  the  door  had  been  carelessly  left 
open  ;  but  Madame  K.  was  very  sure  that  she  was  never 
guilty  of  such  carelessness,  and  I  was  disposed  to  accredit 
her  self-judgment. 

I  took  possession  of  everything  in  the  drawer,  a  purse, 
some  old  papers,  some  letters ;  one  letter  particularly  at- 
tracting my  attention,  a  corner  or  strip  of  it  having  been 
36  24  * 


616  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

torn  off.  I  asked  Madame  K.  about  this  torn  letter.  She 
could  give  me  no  information  about  it.  It  was  a  business 
letter  written  to  her  late  husband,  and  dated  back  some 
three  years.  It  was  written  in  English,  but  by  a  German 
friend  of  the  late  Mr.  K.,  residing  then  at  Cincinnati,  Ohio. 
There  was  the  unmistakable  German  form  of  the  letters ; 
and  I  know  not  what  should  have  "come  over"  me  just 
then,  for  I  am  not  a  believer  in  the  interference  of  intelli- 
gent spirits,  and  I  fear  I  do  not  believe  more  than  is 
necessary  of  ancient  or  modern  "  inspiration,"  but  I  said 
to  tl\e  widow, — 

"  Madame  K.,  I  feel  as  though  we  were  going  to  find 
out,  sooner  or  later,  who  took  the  money,  and  I  hope  we 
shall  get  the  money  back,  too." 

Of  course  her  eyes  sparkled  a  little  with  sudden  hope, 
excited  by  my  confident  manner  of  speaking,  but  they 
dropped  before  she  replied, — 

"  But,  sir,  I  dare  not  hope  so,  for  the  disappointment,  if 
you  should  not  find  the  money,  would  be  worse  than  the 
loss  original "  (lor  madame  still  transposed  some  of  her 
English  words  according  to  her  native  idiom).  "  But  you 
will  be  a  vary  excee-lent  man  if  you  do  find  it,"  added  she, 
with  a  most  provoking  smile  of  encouragement. 

I  searched  the  boarders'  and  servants'  rooms,  with  mad- 
ame, most  thoroughly,  but  unavailingly,  and  told  her  she 
must  keep  quiet,  and  wait  for  some  circumstance  to  de- 
velop itself  which  might  put  us  on  the  right  track ;  and 
that,  meanwhile,  I  would  trace  out  the  patent  roof-maker 
in  his  quarters  in  New  York. 

From  something  which  madame  told  me,  and  from  the 
fact  of  seeing  an  old,  and  pretty  well  worn  pack  of  marked- 
back  playing  cards,  and  some  other  indicationsof  a  sporting 
man,  I  expected  to  find  this  fellow's  "  work,"  not  so  much 
on  roofs  as  under  them.  But  I  found  he  had  really  an 
ostensible  business,  and  had  an  office, — a  very  small  one,— 
in  which  he  had  three  or  four  little  houses,  of  the  size  of 
email  dog  kennels,  the  roofs  of  which  were  covered  with 


VACILLATIONS.  617 

his  patent  composition,  and  he  had  also  some  four  men  .at 
work ;  but  he  did  not  work  much.  He  hardly  took  the 
trouble  to  supervise  his  men's  work,  but  charged  so  much 
a  day  for  their  time,  and  paid  them  less,  living  on  the  dif- 
ference, and  thus  keeping  up  appearances,  while  he  was 
trying  to  sell  out  his  "  right "  to  somebody  who  might  be 
found  stupid  enough  to  give  him  as  much  as  he  paid 
for  it.' 

I  found  that  some  of  his  associates  were  gamblers  and 
other  kinds  of  sporting  men,  and  that  he  kept  his  best 
suit  of  clothes  in  a  wardrobe  at  his  office,  and  dressed 
more  elegantly  in  New  York  than  he  did  in  Newark, 
where  the  clothes  he  wore  were  whole,  neat,  and  good 
enough.  This  flashy  dressing  in  New  York  not  only  sug- 
gested vanity,  but  some  cunning,  I  thought,  showing  the 
man  to  be  capable  of  some  secrecy  and  diplomacy.  1  pur- 
sued my  investigations  into  his  character,  not  only  in  New 
York,  but  in  Ohio,  where  he  was  born,  and  raised.  He 
came  from  the  beautiful  town  of  Dayton,  and  his  parent- 
age, and  relationship  there,  were  highly  respectable.  The 
young  man's  countenance  was  in  his  favor.  He  looked 
honest  and  good-hearted,  and  I  found  that  he  dealt  with 
his  men  as  he  agreed.  But  he  would  be  a  sorry  fool  who 
should  trust  much  to  appearances  in  a  large  city  like  New 
York,  where  the  greatest  scoundrels  are  the  most  fasci- 
nating men  and  women. 

But  I  confess  my  mind  oscillated  considerably  between 
suspicions  of  this  young  man's  guiltiness  and  the  inclina- 
tion to  believe  him  innocent.  I  found  he  spent  considerable 
money,  and  I  found,  too,  where  he  sometimes  made  a  good 
deal  in  gambling.  He  was  one  of  those  unfortunate  beings 
who  enjoy  good  luck  enough,  now  and  then,  to  constantly 
whet  their  hopes,  and  make  their  severest  losses  only 
prompters  to  more  earnest  trials  of  the  "  fickle  goddess." 

I  continued  to  trace  him  back  and  forth  between  New- 
ark and  New  York,  which  I  was  enabled  to  do  almost 
daily,  through  the  kindness  of  a  friend  who  resided  in 


CIS  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

Newark,  and  came  daily  to  New  York  to  his  business. 
This  man  talked  with  him  about  the  widow's  loss,  for 
which  the  young  roof-maker  expressed  great  regret ;  said 
Madame  K.  was  a  fine  lady,  worked  hard,  and  he  wished  he 
was  able  to  make  up  her  loss  to  her  in  some  way. 

When  asked  if  he  suspected  anybody,  the  poor  music 
teacher  in  particular,  he  expressed  himself  as  unwilling 
to  suspect  anybody,  and  declared  that  he  could  never  be- 
lieve the  music  teacher  guilty,  except  under  the  most 
positive  evidence.  He  was  too  simple  a  man,  he  said,  to 
do  anything  of  the  sort ;  a  man  who  had  no  bad  habits  to 
indulge,  and  one  of  that  stamp  whom  the  possession  of 
eight  hundred  dollars,  however  he  might  have  obtained 
it,  would  have  driven  crazy. 

I  managed  to  get  entrance  into  the  young  man's  office 
in  New  York,  and  make  careful  examination  of  every- 
thing there,  such  clothes  as  he  had  in  the  wardrobe,  and 
everything  else,  even  to  a  hollow  cane,  or  walking-stick, 
in  which,  to  my  surprise,  I  found  money  —  good  money, 
but  nothing  corresponding  with  any  of  the  bills  lost  by  the 
widow,  which  were  nearly  all  large  ones,  with  a  few  small 
ones, —  all  the  latter  the  issue  of  a  Newark  bank.  Finding 
the  money  in  this  hollow  cane  made  me  suspicious  of  the 
man's  general  character.  Why  carry  good  money  in  such 
a  "  purse  "  ?  It  would  be  a  convenient  thing  to  conceal 
counterfeit  money  in,  I  thought ;  and  then  I  said  to  my- 
self, "  Why  not  good  to  keep  stolen  money  in  too  ?  "  and 
finally  I  answered,  "  Yes,  and  good  money  too  ;  "  for  not 
one  person  in  ten  thousand  would  ever  think  to  look  in 
such  a  place  for  money.  Besides,  the  young  man's  name 
was  engraved  upon  the  silver  head  of  the  cane,  and  that 
fact  ought  rather  to  ward  off  suspicion  against  him. 

In  these  and  like  ways  I  was  always  fluctuating  in  my 
mind  regarding  the  young  roof-maker ;  and  as  I  had  pur- 
sued matters  under  the  inspiration  of  my  sympathy  for 
the  widow  in  her  loss  (with  a  slight  prompting,  I  confess, 
on  the  score  of  her  bewitching  ways  and  her  delicate  beau* 


A  PAINFUL  BLUNDER.  61!) 

ty)  quite  beyond  what  I  would  have  felt  warranted  in 
doing  in  another  case  under  like  circumstances  ;  BO  I  told 
the  niadame  one  day,  when  she  called  at  my  office,  as  she 
not  unfreqnently  did,  that  I  thought  we  must  give  up  the 
search ;  that  probably  nothing  but  the  death-bed  repent- 
ance of  the  thief  would  ever  disclose  who  took  the  money, 
and  that  all  had  been  done  which  could  possibly  be  done,  I 
thought,  to  ferret  out  the  thief.  It  was  ea?y  for  him  to 
get  the  larger  bills  changed  to  small  ones  in  New  York, 
and  get  the  Newark  money  out  of  his  hands,  and  as  for 
the  gold,there  was  no  way  to  identify  that ;  that  either 
one  of  the  boarders,  or  some  visitor,  had  probably  taken 
the  money  ;  and  so  much  time  having  passed  since  it  was 
taken,  that  we  might  as  well  expect  the  dead  to  rise  that 
day  in  Greenwood  as  to  expect  to  find  the  thief  or  the 
money. 

At  this  madame  burst  into  tears  over  the  loss  of  the 
money,  as  I  supposed,  and  I  tried  to  calm  her ;  but  she 
wept  quite  frantically.  I  had  never  seen  her  before  save 
in  a  calm,  dignified  state,  and  knew  not  what  to  make  of 
it;  but  she  said,  — 

"Not  for  the  gone  money,  I  weep,  sir;  but  what  you 
said  of  the  dead  in  Greenwood :  there  are  all  mine." 

I  had  known  that  her  children  and  husband  were  buried 
in  an  obscure  quarter  of  Greenwood,  but  forgot  that 
fact,  when  I  spoke,  and  stupidly  made  allusion  to  that 
cemetery.  The  madame's  tears  re-strengthened  my  sympa- 
thy ;  and  she  told  me  a  dream,  too,  which  she  had  had 
three  or  four  nights  before,  with  such  unction,  that  while 
I  laughed  in  my  sleeve  at  it,  I  could  not,  for  the  life  of  me, 
but  express  in  my  face  believing  astonishment.  She  said 
at  the  same  time  that  she  did  not  believe  in  dreams  at  all, 
yet  this  one  was  so  startlingly  realistic  in  its  personages, 
localities,  etc.,  that  it  seemed  to  her  more  a  veritable  his- 
tory of  facts  than  the  shadowings  of  a  disordered  imagina- 
tion in  semi-sleep.  The  substance  of  the  dream  was,  that 
I  had  been  over  to  her  house  again,  had  made  another 


620  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

search,  and  in  the  room  occupied  by  the  music  teacher  and 
the  young  roofer  (for  they  occupied  the  same  room,  the 
largest  in  the  little  house,  but  had  separate  beds) ;  and 
that  while  I  was  shaking  some  clothes  belonging  to  one  of 
them,  she  could  not  tell  which,  down  fell  a  five  dollar  gold 
piece,  and  dropped  on  the  carpet  at  a  point  exactly  equi- 
distant from  the  two  beds,  after  rolling  on  the  carpet  in  a 
small  curve.  Madame  derided  the  dream  while  she  told  it, 
yet  it  evidently  had  made  some  impression  on  her  mind;  dis- 
covering which,  together  with  my  re-aroused  sympathies 
for  her  over  her  widowhood  and  the  loss  of  the  money,  I 
assured  myself  that  I  ought  to  make  further  trial,  and 
thought  I  would  revisit  her  house  and  make  further  search. 

I  did  so  two  days  afterwards,  at  my  first  leisure,  and 
reviewed  the  whole  affair  there.  In  searching  the  roof- 
maker's  room  again,  which  I  did  out  of  a  sort  of  deference 
to  the  widow's  dream,  but  without  the  slightest  expecta- 
tion that  I  should  find  any  clew  to  the  thief,  I  came  across 
a  garment  which  I  had  not  seen  before,  either  in  his  closet 
there  or  in  the  wardrobe  at  his  office  in  New  York.  It 
was  an  old  vest,  and,  strange  to  say,  madame  did  not  remem- 
ber to  have  ever  seen  the  roof-maker  wear  it.  Yet  there  it 
hung  with  his  clothes.  Perhaps  it  was  the  music  teacher's ; 
but  at  any  rate  we,  in  a  sort  of  listless  way,  examined  it ; 
finding  nothing  but  a  few  cloves  and  spices  in  it,  such  as 
too  many  young  men  carry  in  their  pockets  in  order  to 
draw  therefrom  disguises  of  a  bad  liquor-smelling  breath  ; 
and  a  crumpled  piece  of  letter  paper,  quite  black  on  one 
side,  which  I  was  inclined  to  throw  aside  ;  and  I  should 
have  done  so,  except  from  my  habit  (rather  than  judg- 
ment, in  this  case)  of  examining  everything. 

Unfolding  this,  which  proved  to  be  a  strip  of  nearly  tri- 
angular form,  about  two  and  a  half  inches  wide  on  the  line 
of  one  "  leg,"  by  four  or  five  inches  by  the  other  "  leg,"  I  no- 
ticed some  letters  and  words  on  the  piece.  It  was  evidently 
a  part  of  a  letter  torn  off;  and  I  reflected  that  I  had  seen 
writing  of  that  same  style  somewhere,  and  turning  up  the 


A  TAILOR'S   USEFUL   "COAT   OF   ARMS."  G21 

left-hand  upper  corner  of  the  piece,  to  flatten  it  out  more,  I 
discovered  the  letters  "  ati,"  upon  it,  and  it  flashed  into 
my  mind  at  once  where  that  piece  came  from.  1  made  no 
remark  to  the  widow  at  this  point,  but  told  her  we  would 
now  take  the  vest  in  charge,  and  go  down  arid  look  into 
the  secretary  again.  She  withdrew  from  the  drawer  the 
letters  and  papers  she  had  shown  me  on  my  first  visit, 
and  which  I  had  charged  her  to  keep  safe,  and  I  was  not 
long  in  finding  the  proper  letter  (the  one  I  have  described 
heretofore),  and  adjusting  the  torn  piece  to  it,  it  fitted  ex- 
actly, and  the  rest  of  the  word  —  Cincinn  —  was  added  to 
the  "  ati,"  and  place  of  date  ;  and  then  I  called  Madame  Iv.'s 
attention  to  it.  My  conclusion  was,  that  the  thief  had,  in 
some  way,  by  accident  torn  that  letter  at  the  time  ha  took 
the  money,  and  that  somehow  the  piece  had  gotten  into 
his  pocket  and  he  had  forgotten  it.  But  it  was  carefully 
folded,  as  I  saw,  when  I  essayed  to  fold  it  back  to  the 
shape  I  found  it  in. 

While  I  was  doing  this,  the  widow  exclaimed,  — 

"  Why  Mr. ,  I  remember  all  about  it  now.     I  tore 

the  letter  to  get  a  piece  to  wrap  up  the  two  ten  dollar 
gold  pieces  in  ;  "  and  I  saw  it  was  just  the  fit  size  as  folded. 
So  we  had  traced  the  gold  pieces  into  the  roofer's  vest 
pocket;  and  all  the  rest  was  clear  now.  He  was  the  thief. 
But  how  should  we  prove  the  vest  to  be  his,  if  he  should 
deny  it?  I  did  not  wish  to  leave  any  loose  place  in  the 
evidence,  and  I  knew  well  enough  that  the  roofer  was 
"  sharp,"  and  I  began  to  conceive  that  he  would  not  be 
easily  caught.  It  would  not  do  to  speak  to  anybody  iu 
the  house  to  inquire  if  he  had  been  seen  to  wear  that  vest, 
for  he  might  be  innocent,  and  the  widow  did  not  wish  any 
of  her  boarders  to  know  that  another  one  was  suspected  : 
but  fortunately  on  the  inside  of  the  neck  of  the  vest  was 
a  little  piece  of  silk,  on  which,  in  imitation  of  needlework, 
was  stamped  the  maker's  name,  "  H.  Schneider,  Merchant 
Tailor,  565  Sixth  Avenue,  N.  Y.,"  as  I  made  it  out  with 
some  difficulty.  I  rolled  up  the  vest  in  a  paper,  bade  the 


622  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

widow  good  afternoon,  and  informing  her  when  she  would 
probably  see  me  next,  left. 

The  next  day  found  me  at  Mr.  Schneider's,  the  merchant 
tailor's.  He  recognized  the  vest  as  having  been  made  by 
him  a  year  and  a  half  before  or  BO,  and  thought  he  could, 
after  a  while,  think  for  whom  he  made  it.  He  turned  over 
his  books  of  measurements  or  orders,  to  help  revive  his 
memory;  meanwhile  some  of  his  "jours,"  doing  work  at 
home,  came  in  to  return  and  take  work,  and  he  inquired 
of  each  of  them  if  he  made  this.  One  of  them  remem- 
bered the  work,  and  described  the  man  for  whom  it  was 
made,  he  having  been  put  to  the  trouble  of  making  an 
extra  inside  pocket.  He  described  the  man,  and  Mr. 
Schneider  was  at  last  able  to  remember  his  name,  which 
was  that  of  the  roofer;  and  turning  to  his  index  found  the 
name,  and  the  order  for  the  identical  vest  among  other 
things. 

I  considered  the  evidence  complete  enough  ;  and  going 
to  Newark  next  day,  and  providing  myself  with  a  local 
officer,  then  betook  myself  to  the  widow's  house,  and  there 
awaited  the  return  of  the  young  roofer.  He  came  at  an 
unusually  late  hour  that  night ;  and  we  called  him  into  the 
parlor,  —  the  madame,  the  officer,  and  I,  —  and  I  asked  him 
first  if  that  was  his  vest,  showing  it  him. 

"  Yes,"  he  replied  at  once,  "that's  my  vest;  but  I  haven't 
seen  it  before  in  a  good  while  ;  where  did  you  get  it?" 

"  Among  your  clothes  in  the  closet,  yesterday," I  replied  ; 
"  and  it's  of  no  use  for  us  to  make  words  about  it.  We 
are  here  to  arrest  you  for  stealing  the  madame's  money. 
We've  traced  out  all  necessary  evidence,  traced  the  gold 
pieces  into  your  pocket,  and  got  the  tell-tale  piece  of 
paper  in  our  possession  which  you  foolishly  overlooked, 
hut  left  in  your  vest  pocket.  We  want  to  settle  the  mat- 
ter now,  as  the  madame  needs  the  money  more,  perhaps, 
than  the  law  needs  you." 

The  roofer  looked  at  me  with  blank  astonishment,  and 
declared  his  innocence  in  a  way  which  would  have  con- 


"UNDER  PROTEST."  623 

vinced  all  ordinary  people.  None  but  an  old  experienced 
officer  could  well  have  refused  to  believe  the  man  inno- 
cent. But  I  told  him  it  was  of  no  use ;  that  he  would  be 
arrested  and  tried  if  he  did  not  settle  ;  "  and,  you  see,"  I 
added,  "  that  even  if  you  were  innocent  you  could  not 
withstand  the  evidence  we  have  against  you,  unless  you 
could  prove  an  absolute  alibi  on  the  day  the  money  was 
taken ;  but,  unfortunately  for  you  on  that  head,  we  can 
show  that  you  were  here  more  hours  than  usual  that 
day." 

He  still  persisted  in  declaring  his  innocence,  and  acted 
for  all  the  world  like  the  most  innocent  of  men.  I  told 
him  he  was  a  capital  actor  already,  and  that,  perhaps,  it 
would  prove  the  best  thing  which  could  possibly  h^|lpen 
to  him  to  be  caught  thus  early  in  his  career  of  crime.  He 
grew  apparently  indignant ;  admitted  that  he  gambled  a 
good  deal  more  than  he  ought  to,  but  declared  that  he  had 
never  been  guilty  of  crime  of  any  sort,  and  never  intended 
to  be  ;  and,  said  he, — 

"  I  would  not  have  the  stigma  of  the  suspicion  fixed 
upon  me  for  all  the  wealth  of  New  York.  It  would  kill 
my  mother  if  she  came  to  hear  of  it,  and  my  father  would 
disinherit  me  ;  and  I  am  expecting  a  good  fortune  from  him 
some  day.  I've  got  into  bad  habits  enough ;  but  I  don't 
drink  at  all,  and  I  am  guilty  of  no  crimes." 

I  reminded  him  of  the  cloves  and  spices  we  found  in 
the  vest  pocket.  He  made  strange  of  this,  and  said  some- 
body else  must  have  worn  the  vest ;  "  that  he  had  no  occa- 
sion to  disguise  his  breath  ;  that  he  neither  drank  liquors, 
had  a  foul  stomach,  or  decayed  teeth  ;  "  and  I  confess  his 
month  did  look  wondrously  clean  and  wholesome. 

But  of  course  I  was  not  to  be  caught  with  the  chaff  of 
protested  innocence ;  and,  finally  seeing  his  situation,  he 
thought  best  not  to  stand  trial,  but  to  settle  up,  and  pay 
the  widow  (  "  under  protest,  however,"  he  said)  for  what 
she  had  lost,  if  we  would  agree  to  never  mention  his  name 
in  connection  with  the  transaction,  and  if  the  widow  would 


624  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

allow  him  to  continue  to  board  there  for  two  or  three 
months  after  she  should  report  that  she  had  finally  found 
the  money  in  another  drawer.  In  that  way  the  very  fact 
of  the  theft  would  be  concealed,  and  his  reputation  be  un- 
injured. 

We  consented  to  all  this;  and  as  his  money  was  in  New 
York,  he  agreed  to  go  home  with  me  that  night,  and  re- 
main under  arrest  at  my  house,  and  raise  the  money  the 
next  day,  I  to  accompany  him  to  the  bank. 

Ho  had  some  fifteen  hundred  dollars  on  deposit  in 
the  Chemical  Bank,  as  it  seemed,  when  we  went  there ; 
that  was  Jris  balance,  and  he  had  had  some  three  or  four 
thousand  there  as  his  original  deposit.  He  paid  over  to 
me  ^he  eight  hundred  and  forty  dollars ;  and  on  my 
reminding  him  that  the  widow  had  had  a  great  deal  of 
trouble,  and  would  have  a  large  bill  to  pay  for  services, 
he  petulently  asked,  "  How  much?"  and  I  said,  "  Suppose 
you  make  it  nine  hundred  in  all."  He  handed  me  sixty 
dollars  more,  with  an  angry,  nervous  look ;  and  said  it  was 
"  a  hard  thing  for  an  entirely  innocent  man  to  be  obliged 
to  do ;  but  the  evidence  looks  very  bad  against  me,  or  I 
would  fight  the  case  till  I  die."  I  smiled  at  him,  as  I  was 
wont  to  smile  at  the  guilty,  who  think  to  cheat  one  with 
words  of  protested  innocence,  and  bade  him  good  morn- 
ing, and  wended  my  way  speedily  to  Newark,  to  report  to 
the  widow,  and  "  settle  up." 

She  insisted  upon  my  taking  just  twice  the  sum  I 
charged  her,  and  was  overjoyed  at  getting  back  her 
money,  which  she  took  care  to  put  immediately  in  bank, 
and  said  she  should  never  have  any  more  money  by  her 
again  than  necessary  for  current  expenses.  She  dreaded 
to  have  the  roofer  come  back  to  board ;  but  said  she  would 
abide  by  the  bargain,  and  she  did.  He  returned  as  usual 
that  night.  Everything  went  on  as  before.  Madame  an- 
nounced, as  was  agreed,  that  the  money  had  been  found  in 
another  drawer  (where,  by  the  way,  she,  woman-like,  in- 
sisted that  it  should  be  first  put  by  me,  in  order  that  she 


PROVING  TOO  MUCH.  62o 

might  tell  a  "  white  lie  "  instead  of  a  black  one  about  it) ; 
and  after  the  boarders  had  gratulated  her  upon  her  good 
fortune  in  finding  the  money,  nothing  more  was  said  about 
the  matter.  The  young  roofer  continued  to  board  with 
her,  according  to  the  agreement,  for  some  two  months, 
and  then  left  for  quarters  in  New  York. 

His  conduct  at  the  house  was  perfectly  exemplary ;  and 
when  I  saw  the  widow,  on  an  occasion  about  a  year  after, 
she  expressed  her  satisfaction  at  having  taken  no  steps 
at  law  against  him,  for  the  theft,  and  said,  that  after  all 
she  sometimes  would  think,  now  and  then,  for  a  minute, 
that  he  was  innocent ;  "  but  then,  I  think  immediately, 
how  absurd  !  "  said  she  ;  "  and  I  pity  him  ;  but  I  do  believe 
he  will  be  guilty  never  of  such  a  crime  again."  She  told 
me,  too,  that  he  had  called  on  her  two  or  three  times  dur- 
ing the  year,  and  made  her  pleasant  visits.  Not  a  word 
passed  between  them  about  the  money. 

But  the  reader  must  not  be  over-surprised  when  I  in- 
form him,  that  about  two  years  after  the  time  I  last  spoke 
of  above,  I  found  in  the  examination  of  another  case  that 
the  young  roofer  was,  as  he  always  had  declared,  entirely 
innocent  of  the  theft,  and  that  the  Hungarian  lawyer, 
one  of  the  boarders,  well  kn.ew  that  the  roofer  was  in- 
nocent, and  who  was  the  guilty  party,  at  the  time  he 
sent  the  widow  to  me.  But  this  latter  case  has  no  special 
connection  with  the  one  I  have  here  narrated,  and  I  leave 
it  for  another  time,  stopping  simply  to  say,  that  circum- 
stantial evidence,  while  in  its  general  character  it  is  often 
more  reliable  than  the  oral  testimony  of  living  witnesses, 
who  may  be  prejudiced  or  bribed,  is  nevertheless  some- 
times too  strong,  proves  too  much,  and  is  liable  to  bo  mis- 
used. I  have  known  several  instances  of  this  kind  in  my 
experience. 


YIIE  COUNTERFEIT  MONEY  SPECULATORS. 


" MONET"  —  THE  COUNTERFEITERS'  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY  —  THE  CFNNING 
OF  BANK  BILLS  —  NO  VALID  BANK  BILLS  ISSUED — A  TRICK  OF  THE 
BANKS  TO  EVADE  THE  LAW  —  SWINDLING  I  MM  II  "  COLOR  OF  LAW," 

AND  IN  DEFIANCE  THEREOF;  A  VAST  DISTINCTION COUNTERFEITERS 

AS  "  PUBLIC  BENEFACTORS  " THE  REGULAR  COUNTERFEITERS  KVBAR- 

BASSED  BY  THE  BOGUS  ONES  MR.  "  FERGUSON'S  "  MARVELLOUS  LET- 
TER—  COUNTLESS  COMPLAINTS  THE  "HONEST  FARMER"  OF  VER- 
MONT, AND  HIS  SPECULATION  WITH  THE  COUNTERFEIT  MONEY  MEN 

WHAT  HE  SENT  FOR,  AND  WHAT  HE  GOT A  SECURELY  DONE-l'P  PACK- 
AGE—  A  "  DOWN-CELLAR"  SCENE  —  THE  "HONEST  FARMER'S"  CONFU- 
SION—  A  BIT  OF  LOCAL  HISTORY  RELATING  TO  THOMASTON,  CONN. 

THE     HONEST    OYSTER     DEALER     THERE,     AND    THE     NINETY'     DOLLARS 

"C.  O.  D."  —  A  QUESTION  UNSETTLED  —  HOW  THE  "  UONEST  FARMER" 
OF  VERMONT  CHEATED  ME  AT  LAST. 

So  long  as  a  false  "  representative  of  value  "  is  made  a 
"  medium  of  exchange,"  whether  we  call  it  "  money,"  or 
what  not ;  or  whether  it  be  made  of  gold,  silver,  or  paper, 
or  any  other  material,  so  long,  probably,  will  it,  in  all  its 
degrees  of  professed  value,  be  counterfeited  ;  and  shrewd 
men,  men  who  possess  logical  discrimination  enough  to 
see  that  one  humbug  is  no  worse  in  principle  (though 
worse,  perhaps,  in  the  degree  of  bad  principle)  than 
another,  will  always  be  devising  "  illegal  "  plans  of  mak- 
ing money,  as  subtle  and  keen,  almost,  as  the  regular  bunk- 
ing business. 

It  is  probable,  I  think,  that  nothing  more  clever  in  the 
way  of  cheating  or  robbery  will  ever  be  invented  than 
the  issuing  of  paper  money  by  private  banks  ;  for  the  busi- 
ness is  so  adroitly  managed  that  it  is  highly  respectable, — 
which  cannot  exactly  be  said  of  some  other  modes  of  cheat- 
ing. A  bank  president  and  the  cashier  command  much 

020 


BANK  BILLS  ALL  ILLEGAL.  627 

respect  in  the  city  or  the  country  village,  and  conduct 
their  business  openly,  too.  Indeed,  they  are  usually  mag- 
nates in  the  community  in  which  they  reside,  and  are  in- 
trusted, to  large  extent,  with  other  people's  money,  while 
the  unfortunate  fellow  who  cannot  procure  a  proper  bank 
charter,  and  so  has  to  content  himself  with  running  illicitly 
a  humble  faro  bank,  is  apt  to  be  frowned  upon  by  the  com- 
munity. Perhaps  a  more  pertinent  example  of  the  inabili- 
ty of  the  masses  to  discriminate  in  moral  affairs,  could  not 
well  be  suggested. 

The  country  is  flooded  with  counterfeit  money,  espe- 
cially of  the  "  fractional  currency  "  kind.  Everybody 
takes  it,  and  nearly  everybody  who  has  a  ten  cent,  or 
twenty-five  cent,  or  fifty  cent  "  representative  of  value," 
of  the  spurious  kind,  lets  it  pass  on,  if  it  will.  The  pub- 
lic conscience  is  not  disturbed  by  these  little  things ;  and 
there  are  a  great  many  persons  who  let  the  one  dollar  and 
five  dollar  counterfeit  bills  which  they  chance  to  receive, 
"  go  on  doing  their  accustomed  good,"  into  the  hands  of 
others.  This  course  is  illegal,  and  therefore  "  immoral/' 
and  not  right ;  and  in  another  sense  it  is  immoral,  because 
it  is  unjust  and  thievish  in  its  character.  But  then,  as 
some  simple  people  may  be  surprised  to  learn,  nearly  all 
the  issues  of  private  banks  are  also  thievish  and  unjust. 
Bank  bills  are  not  generally  issued  according  to  the  re- 
quirements of  the  law,  and  are,  therefore,  not  even  legal 
money,  and  are  of  no  more  real  worth  than  a  counterfeit 
bill,  so  long  as  the  latter  passes.  It  is  in  their  negotiability, 
or  the  passing  thereof,  that  bank  bills  are  valuable  or  use- 
ful as  a  means  of  exchange.  The  counterfeit  bill  is  just 
as  convenient  so  long  as  it  does  the  work  of  "  passing." 

I  do  not  know  what  is  the  fact  regarding  the  private 
banks  of  Connecticut,  for  example,  nowadays  ;  but  a  few 
years  ago  an  eminent  lawyer  of  that  State  told  me  that  he 
presumed  there  was  not  a  single  bill  legally  issued  by 
any  of  the  Connecticut  banks,  the  circulation  of  which 
amounted  in  the  aggregate  at  that  time  to  millions  of  dot 


628  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

Jars.  The  law  of  the  State  of  Connecticut  limited  the 
issue  of  bills  by  any  bank  to  not  over  ten  times  as  much 
in  representative  amount  as  the  "  specie  or  bullion  "  which 
the  given  bank  had  constantly  in  its  vaults.  If  the  bank's 
capital  was,  for  example,  $200,000,  but  invested  in  real 
estate,  then  the  bank  could  not  properly  issue  a  single 
dollar,  unless  by  some  means  it  possessed  itself  of  specie 
to  hold  in  its  vaults ;  even  then  evading  the  spirit  of  the 
law.  But  my  friend,  the  lawyer  referred  to,  informed  me 
that  none  of  the  banks  complied  with  the  rule  of  keeping 
the  requisite  specie  in  its  vaults.  Suppose  a  bank's  issues 
amounted  to  $300,000  ;  to  respect  the  law  it  would  have  to 
keep  $30,000  specie  on  hand.  Is  it  reasonable  even  to  sup- 
pose it  would  do  so  when  it  could  readily  loan  the  $30,000 
to  parties  in  New  York  at  seven  per  cent,  interest,  and 
thus  make  them  "  earn"  $2.100  a  year?  Not  at  all;  and 
the  banks  did  not  heed  the  law. 

But  there  were  Bank  Commissioners,  whose  duty  it  was 
(and  there  are  the  same  still,  I  suppose)  to  see  to  this 
matter,  together  with  others  relating. to  banks.  They 
visited  the  banks  once  or  twice  a  year.  When  about  to 
make  a  visit,  they  sent  word  to  the  bank  officers  when  to  ex- 
pect them,  and  the  officers  of  a  given  bank  in  Hartford  or 
New  Haven,  for  example,  went  to  other  banks  and  borrowed 
from  several,  for  the  time  being,  specie  enough  in  the  ag- 
gregate to  make  a  "  show  "  with.  As  the  commissioners, 
after  visiting  one  bank,  and  making  an  examination,  were 
about  to  leave  it  and  go  to  another,  the  specie  found 
in  the  bank  examined,  was  sent  off  to  the  other  bank, 
and  there  did  service  again ;  and  so  on  through  the  series 
of  the  city  banks.  The  isolated  country  banks,  like  that 
at  Litchfield,  had  notice  of  the  advent  of  the  Bank  Com- 
missioners, and  sent  to  the  city  banks  for  a  temporary  loan 
of  the  required  specie. 

Thus  it  was  that  the  banks  conducted  their  business 
illicitly,  and  it  is  probable  that  at  no  time  was  a  single 
dollar  of  their  issues  properly  predicated,  and  every  dol- 


"THE   ONLY   GOOD   OF  TAPER  MONEY."  C29 

lar-was  therefore  illegally  issued.  But  the  bills  passed, — 
passed  as  well  as  undiscovered  counterfeit  bills,  —  and 
were,  in  reality,  just  as  fictitious  arid  illegal.  But  the 
banks  being  more  sharp,  and  having  more  facilities  for  cov- 
ering up  their  iniquity  than  have  the  counterfeiters,  suc- 
ceed in  swindling  the  people,  year  after  year,  without 
detection,  while  the  poor  counterfeiters  are  frequently 
caught  and  punished,  and  their  "  capital  "  (dies  for  "  mak- 
ing;/  the  money,  paper,  etc.)  is  destroyed;  and  thus  their 
business  is  interrupted,  very  much  to  the  detriment  of  its 
profits,  and  their  laboriously-earned  skill,  as  "  business 
men,"  made  as  nought,  and  all  their  valuable  time  in  per- 
fecting themselves  in  their  business  also  lost.  It  is  sad 
to  reflect  upon  this ;  but  the  picture  would  be  sadder,  per- 
haps, if  added  to  these  irregular  swindlers,  were  the  regu- 
lar bank  swindlers  of  the  land. 

So  when  one  comes  to  analyze  matters,  no  great  moral 
distinction  is  found  between  two  persons,  one  of  whom 
swindles  under  "  color  of  law,"  while  the  other  swindles  in 
defiance  of  law.  The  latter  is  perhaps  the  braver  (though 
less  sagacious)  man  of  the  two.  It  is,  after  all,  only  a 
question  of  taste  or  expediency ;  and  so  is  it  that  the 
great  counterfeiters  think.  Officers  arresting  these  men, 
frequently  find  them  ready  to  defend  their  cause  "  on  prin- 
ciple." They  always  avow  themselves  "  as  good  men  as 
the  bankers,"  and  they  frequently  declare  themselves  pub- 
lic benefactors,  in  that  they  make  money  plenty,  and  re- 
lieve the  stringency  of  the  money  market ! 

"  The  only  good  of  paper  money,"  once  said  a  great 
counterfeiter  to  me,  "  is  to  pass;  a  counterfeit  bill  is  just 
as  good  for  passing  as  a  genuine  bill ;  and  if  you  folks 
would  let  us  "  private  bankers  "  alone  long  enough  to  give 
us  time  to  perfect  our  business,  we  should  be  able  to  pro- 
duce "  goods  "  so  perfect  that  nobody  would  find  any  fault 
with  them,  and  all  would  feel  grateful  to  us.  But  it  costs 
us  a  great  deal  to  get  well  started  in  business ;  and  just  as 
we  are  beginning  to  thrive,  you  step  in  and  break  us  up  ! " 


630  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

The  man  to  whom  I  allude  was  serious  in  what  ho  said. 
Of  course  ho  was  lacking  in  moral  perceptions,  and  was,  in 
one  sense,  demented,  or  a  "  great  fool ;  "  for  he  could  not 
see  the  moral  difference  between  one  kind  of  robbery  and 
another  one  just  like  it  in  principle.  I  pitied  the  man's 
moral  obliquity,  while  I  handed  him  over  to  the  jail-keeper 
to  await  trial.  (I  am  sorry  to  say  that  the  fellow,  for  some 
reason,  was  never  brought  to  trial.  The  District  Attorney 
"  nolled  "  the  case,  although  the  evidence  was  clear  enough 
against  the  "  private  banker."  I  half  suspect  that  the  at- 
torney admired  the  fellow's  reasoning,  and  sympathized 
with  him.) 

Under  -the  circumstances,  it  is  not  then  strange  that  a 
large  number  of  persons  of  excellent  talent,  are  engaged 
in  counterfeiting,  or  in  the  distribution  (or  "  shoving," 
to  use  the  technical  phrase),  of  counterfeit  money  in  this 
country,  and  the  distributors  are  to  be  found  in  all  classes. 
I  have  in  my  mind's  eye,  as  I  write,  an  "  honest  farmer," 
in  a  certain  town  in  the  State  of  Vermont,  who  manifested, 
in  the  goodly  "year  of  our  Lord,"  1870,  an  excellent  dis- 
position to  help  the  counterfeiters  distribute  their  goods, 
but  who  was  sadly  "  disappointed "  in  his  enterprising 
spirit. 

Almost  every  business  has  its  counterfeiters.  As  surely 
as  a  man  conceives  of  some  practical,  easy,  business  way 
of  making  money,  so  sure  is  he  to  find  a  host  of  competi- 
tors springing  up  about  him,  and  injuring  his  business. 
This  has  been  the  fate,  to  considerable  extent,  of  the  regu- 
lar counterfeiters,  —  the  men,  who,  by  their  great  talent  as 
engravers,  have  added  so  much  to  the  mechanical  skill  of 
the  country.  There  is  a  plenty  of  scamps  in  such  a  place 
as  New  York,  for  instance,  who  always  stand  ready  to 
profit  by  other  people's  labors.  (I  should  not  like  to  be 
called  upon  for  a  classification  of  these  scamps,  for  fear 
that  the  various  species  of  the  genus  "who  profit  by 
other  people's  labors  "  might  include  some  reader's  most 
respectable  friends.) 


A  LITHO-MANUSCRIPT  LETTER.  631 

The  regular  counterfeiters  have  been  greatly  einbar- 
russed,  within  the  last  two  or  three  years,  by  a  lot  of  un- 
scrupulous villains,  who  pretend  to  deal  in  counterfeit 
money,  and  who  send  their  advertising  circulars  into  every 
town  and  hamlet  in  the  land.  The  regular  counterfeiters 
can  only  thrive  when  they  are  able  to  make  their  wares 
pass ;  and  these  unscrupulous  villains,  to  whom  I  allude 
above,  are  likely  to  injure  the  business,  and  thus  reduce 
the  brave,  bold,  ingenious  counterfeiters  to  the  condition, 
perhaps,  of  "  private  bankers,"  whoso  course  is  that  only 
of  cowardly,  false  pretences,  under  "color"  or  shield  of 
the  laAV.  This  is  a  state  of  things  which  is  not  a  little  de- 
plorable —  for  the  counterfeiters. 

The  business  of  these  unscrupulous  villains,  whom  we 
will  call,  if  the  reader  please,  counterfeit  money  specu- 
lators (for  "  speculators  "  is  a  name  which  one  should  not 
fail  to  honor  as  often  as  he  can),  is  very  extensive.  To 
give  the  uninitiated  reader  a  little  insight  into  the  business 
of  these  men,  one  of  their  circulars  is  copied  below.  It  is 
a  fair  sample,  in  regard  to  its  substance,  of  all  that  are 
issued  by  these  "  speculators."  The  one  before  me,  and 
which  I  copy  here,  is  a  lithographed  manuscript  letter. 

(To  explain,  for  the  benefit  of  youthful  readers: —  The 
"  speculator  "  first  writes  a  letter,  in  neat  style  of  penman- 
ship, and  then  gets  it  copied  by  an  engraver  on  stone,  and 
from  the  plate  thus  obtained  is  able  to  strike  off  a  large 
number  a  day.  Probably  one  third  of  those  who  receive 
these  letters  do  not  know  that  they  are,  in  fact,  "  printed," 
and  each  ignorant  receiver  feels  flattered  as  he  reads  the 
letter  that  the  "  speculator  "  has  taken  the  pains  to  write 
to  him  so  extendedly,  and  is  led  to  "think  over  "  the  mat- 
tor,  and  finally  to  "  invest,"  when  he  would  have  taken  no 
notice  of  a  "  printed  "  document.) 

The  letter  alluded  to  runs  thus :  — 

"  DF.AK  FRIEND  :  While  conversing  with"  a  gentleman  from  your  local- 
it  v  recently,  yon  were  named  as  a  shrewd  and  reliable  porson,  and  one 
likt-ly  to  enter  into  a  business,  the  nature  of  which  will  be  explained  ia 

37  25 


632  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

tliis  letter.  At  all  events,  he  said,  whether  you  go  in  or  not  you  would 
keep  a  still  tongue,  and  would  not  expose  me.  He  told  me  that  under  no 
circumstances  must  I  inform  you  who  recommended  you;  and  as  I  claim 
to  be  a  man  of  honor,  I  will  never  violate  a  pledge.  I  have  on  hand, 
and  am  constantly  manufacturing  large  quantities  of  the  best  counterfeit 
money  ever  produced  in  the  world.  The  sizes  are  two,  five,  and  ten  dol- 
lar bills,  and  fifty  cent  stamps.  They  are  printed  on  first-class  bank  note 
paper.  The  signatures  are  perfect,  and  the  engraving  is  admirable.  Nut 
one  banker  in  five  hundred  can  detect  them.  I  will  take  a  solemn  oatli 
that  the  bills  which  I  send  you  will  never  be  detected,  unless  you  make 
known  your  business  to  persons  who  have  no  right  to  know  it.  I  shall 
charge  you  ten  dollars  in  good  money  for  every  one  hundred  dollar's  of 
mine.  If  you  have  confidence  in  yourself,  and  desire  to  push  matters, 
you  had  better  order  as  much  as  you  can  get  rid  of  in  a  month  or  two.  In 
that  case,  if  you  buy  as  much  as  five  hundred  dollars  at  a  time,  I  will 
sell  it  to  you  for  twenty  dollars  cash  down,  and  will  allow  you  thirty  days 
credit  for  the  remaining  thirty  dollars.  If  you  purchase  one  thousand 
dollars,  I  will  sell  it  to  you  for  forty  dollars  cash  down,  and  will  wait 
thirty  days  for  the  remaining  sixty.  If  you  want  to  make  a  desperate, 
but  successful,  struggle  for  a  fortune  in  a  few  weeks,  I  will  send  you  five 
thousand  dollars  for  one  hundred  and  eighty  dollars  cash  down,  and  will 
wait  thirty  days  for  the  remaining  three  hundred  and  twenty.  Under 
no  circumstances  will  I  sell  less  than  one  hundred  dollars  (price  ten) 
at  a  time.  When  you  send  me  any  money,  or  a  letter,  go  to  the  nearest 
Railway  station,  ask  the  express  agent  for  a  money  envelope ;  insert 
your  letter,  seal  the  envelope,  and  see  that  it  is  properly  directed  to  me. 
Don't  send  me  a  letter  through  the  Post  Office.  The  Express  Agent 
never  heard  of  me,  and  he  will  have  no  idea  of  the  nature  of  your  bu*i- 
ness.  I  would  prefer  that  you  would  send  me  money  in  advance.  If 
you  are  unwilling  to  do  so,  I  will  ship  whatever  quantity  you  wish  l>y 
express,  and  the  Agent  will  hand  you  the  sealed  package  as  soon  as  you 
pay  him  the  money.  That  is,  I  will  collect  my  money  on  delivery  of 
goods  (C.  O.  D.).  I  will  make  it  appear  that  your  package  contains 
jewelry.  If  you  can  spare  time  come  on  and  sec  me.  Call  at  my  pri- 
vate office,  No.  62  John  Street,  Room  5,  up  stairs,  New  York.  I  will  then 
take  you  to  my  manufactory,  and  let  you  select  whatever  quantity  of  bills 
you  desire.  No  person  in  the  building  knows  what  business  I  carry  on. 
Therefore  you  are  just  as  safe  as  if  you  were  going  into  a  theatre.  If 
any  person  suspected  my  business  I  would  not  have  you  call.  Now,  sir, 
if  you  manage  this  business  properly,  you  can  clear  twenty  thousand  dol- 
lars in  a  year.  You  have  unusual  advantages  for  passing  the  bills  with 
perfect  safety.  Always  ruffle  them  up  to  make  them  appear  dirty  and  old. 
You  can  pass  one  of  my  bills  at  every  store,  and  as  the  change  you  le- 
ceive  will  be  genuine,  you  will  be  enabled  to  clear  at  least  two  thousand 
•dollars  a  month.  Not  one  in  a  thousand  of  your  neighbors  can  distin- 
guish a  genuine  bill  from  one  of  mine.  Therefore  you  are  foolish  for  not 
igrasping  an  opportunity  to  make  money  that  may  never  occur  again. 


"JUST  TO  TRY  THE   THING."  C33 

1  could  name  a  man  in  your  country  who  made  a  fortune  in  tlic  same  way. 
All  liis  neighbors  wonder  how  he  made  it.  But  he  keeps  a  still  tongue. 
Probably  you  know  who  I  mean.  I  deal  on  the  'square,'  and  if  you  are 
true  to  me  you  will  never  regret  it.  I  pray  you  will  not  b;tray  me  in 
case  you  do  not  go  in.  You  will  find  by  dealing  with  me  that  I  have  the 
best  counterfeit  money  in  the  country,  and  that  I  deal  more  honorably 
than  any  other  man  in  the  business,  because  I  deal  on  the  'square.'  I 
would  not  ask  you  for  any  cash  down  for  your  first  order  only  to  secure 
myself  for  the  cost  of  engraving,  printing,  etc.  Head  my  terms  carefully, 
and  remember  them.  Bear  in  mind  that  I  will  give  no  more  credit  than  I 
state  in  this  letter.  One  or  two  of  my  counterfeit  bills  have  already  been 
passed  on  you,  and  you  have  in  turn  passed  them  on  others.  Therefore 
you  should  be  familiar  with  their  appearance  and  quality.  Of  course  you 
did  not  know  they  were  counterfeits. 

"  Read  the  following  instructions  carefully.  Be  sure  and  follow  them ; 
then  no  mistake  can  be  made.  If  you  come  on,  call  at  52  John  Street, 
Office  No.  5,  up  stairs.  But  if  you  send  me  money,  or  a  letter  by  Ex- 
press, direct  it  to  my  manufactory  as  follows :  — 

WM.  J.  FERGUSON, 

No.  194  Broadway,  New  York  City.** 

Bold  in  its  stupidities  and  brazen-faced  in  its  assumptions 
as  is  the  above  letter,  it  has  probably  deceived  hundreds, 
if  not  thousands,  and  the  villain  "  W.  J.  Ferguson  "  could 
doubtless  tell  many  a  side-splitting  story  in  regard  to  the 
simplicity  of  his  victims.  Copies  of  that  and  like  letters, 
"signed  by  other  names,  and  sent  out  by  different  "  specula- 
tors," find  their  way  to  the  farmers',  the  mechanics',  the 
poor  widows',  the  shop-keepers',  and  other  hands,  and  hun- 
dreds send  little  sums  of  money  in  response  —  "just  to  try 
the  thing,"  if  nothing  more.  I  do  not  intend  to  animad- 
vert upon  the  intelligence,  sagacity,  and  moral  worth  of 
the  masses  of  "  the  people  of  these  States,"  for  sufficient 
comment  thereon  can  be  found  in  the  fact  that  these 
"  speculators  "  do  a  thriving  business,  and  if  not  disturbed 
by  the  police  authorities  would  soon  be  able  to  build  as 
fine  edifices  as  do  the  "  private  bankers,"  and  thus  make 
themselves  "  a  credit  to  the  city  of  New  York,"  for  ex- 
ample, by  adorning  it ! 

I  have  alluded  to  a  man  whom  I  have  in  my  mind's  p\-<\ 
He  is  a  somewhat  "  queer  crittur,"  as  one  of  his  neighbors 


G34  KNOTS    UNTIED. 

denominated  him,  though  an  "honest  farmer,"  and  some- 
thing of  a  "  horse  character,"  being  interested  considerably 
in  stock  raising.  lie  resides  not  a  thousand  miles  from 
Rutland,  Vermont,  and  is  "  well  to  do  "  in  the  world.  The  old 
fellow's  name  I  am  under  certain  obligations  to  keep  secret : 
but  lest  his  neighbors  (especially  a  jolly  blacksmith  living  in 
the  same  "parish"  with  him,  and  who  gave  me  some 
'•light"  regarding  him,  and  "enjoyed  the  fun"  when  I  told 
him  of  what  facts  I  discovered),  should,  when  reading  this, 
entertain  unjust  suspicions  as  to  exactly  who  the  "  honest 

farmer  "  (and  member  of  the church,  too  ! )  is,  I  will 

s- imply  use  the  fictitious  name  of  W — orthy  P.  Row — ley 
to  designate  him  by. 

The  exploiting  of  these  "  counterfeit-money  speculators  " 
became  so  extensive  that  at  one  time  complaints  were  re- 
ceived by  the  score  daily  —  by  the  Mayor  of  New  York, 
and  others ;  and  it  was  finally  thought  best  to  take  some 
notice  of  them.  Various  means  were  employed  to  detect 
the  scamps.  One  of  the  most  active  persons,  and  who 
urged  their  detection  and  punishment  most  earnestly,  wa- 
a  man  Avho  is,  undoubtedly,  a  regular  counterfeiter.  This 
was  natural  enough,  as  the  "speculators,"  as  will  be  seen^ 
further  on,  were  hurting  his  business.  This  man  had  rela- 
tives in  Vermont,  and  in  some  way  it  became  suspected 
that  the  "  honest  farmer,"  who  sometimes  visited  to  New 
York,  and  put  i.p  at  the  Bull's  Head  Hotel,  on  Third  Ave- 
nue, bringing  with  him  a  blooded  horse  for  sale  now  and 
then,  was  one  of  his  relations.  (But  this  proved  not  to  be 
the  case.  •  He  had  been  in  his  company,  but  was  not  relat- 
ed to  him  by  blood,  though  slightly  so,  as'  the  sequel  will 
show,  as  a  "  business  man.") 

Circumstances  so  occurred  in  the  ferreting  out  of  some 
counterfeiters,  that  suspicion  fell  upon  the  "  honest  farmer  " 
as  one  of  their  aids  in  the  distribution  or  "  shoving  "  of  the 
'•  ( nicer  "  (the  flash  or  business  name  for  counterfeit  money), 
and  it  was  thought  that  he  was  wanted.  So  I  was  deli- 
gated  to  wait  on  the  gentleman  "  at  or  near  "  his  residence. 


"PUKE  cumosmv 

He  was  in  the  habit  of  visiting  Canada  two  or  three 
times  a  year  to  buy  up  stock  (cattle  mostly),  and  import 
them  into  Vermont,  and  prepare  them  for  market.  This 
was  one  of  his  "side  issues,"  as  he  said.  When  I  arrive  <| 
in  his  town  I  found  he  had  gone  to  Canada,  and  that  I 
should  be  obliged  to  wait  a  day  or  two  for  his  return. 
Meanwhile  1  made  as  much  investigation  into  the  affairs  of 
the  old  fellow  (for  he  is  a  man  of  nearly  sixty  years  of 
age)  as  I  could  safely ;  and  from  an  enemy  or  two  of  his 
discovered  enough  to  learn  that  he  might  be  as  guilty  as 
he  was  suspected  to  be,  and  1  prepared  myself  for  "  inves- 
tigating "  the  old  fellow  on  his  return. 

To  go  into  details  of  how  I  approached  the  "  honest 
farmer,"  and  what  progress  I  made  in  studying  him  as 
connected  with  the  regular  counterfeiting  business,  as  an 
agent  in  distributing  the  "queer  "  in  Vermont, — and  some- 
what in  Canada,  as  was  supposed,  —  would  make  my  nar- 
rative too  long.  But  I  found  at  last,  to  my  satisfaction, 
and  surprise  as  well,  that  that  W.  P.  R.,  the  "  honest  farm- 
er," had  no  connection  with  the  business  we  suspected 
him  to  be  engaged  in.  But  I  found  also  something  which 
might  have  surprised  m.  regarding  a  man  of  his  general 
shrewdness,  if  I  had  not  known  many  equally  astute  men 
made  fools  of. 

The  "  honest  farmer  "  had  received,  from  time  to  time, 
letters  like  that  which  is  quoted  herein  from  Mr.  "  Fergu- 
son." At  first  he  paid  no  attention  to  them.  Finally  his 
speculative  nature  became  whetted,  and  out  of"  pure  curi- 
osity," as  he  asserted  to  me  so  often  as  to  excite  my  sus- 
picions that  he  had  far  other  motive,  he  entered  into  cor- 
respondence with  the  "  New  York  gentlemen,"  which 
resulted  in  his  sending  to  the  speculators  ten  dollars  in 
greenbacks,  for  which  he  was  entitled,  according  to  their 
offer,  to  receive  one  hundred  dollars  in  counterfeit  bills. 
He  gave  instructions  as  to  hpw  he  would  prefer  to  have 
it  sent,  namely,  by  express,  in  a  square  box,  well  wrapped 
and  sealed  up,  and  he  stated  about  what  size.  His  corre- 


636  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

ppondents  were  instructed  to  write  on  the  corner  of  the 
package,  "  One  doz.  Condition."  (This,  he  said,  would  be 
understood  by  "  the  railroad  folks,"  and  his  neighbors,  if 
they  saw  it,  to  mean  "  Condition  powders,"  —  medicine  for 
horses.) 

The  box  came  to  the  railroad  station  near  him.  He  was 
apprised  of  its  arrival,  and  went  for  it  himself.  This 
was  in  the  daytime,  and  he  "  wasted  time  "  on  his  way 
home,  so  as  to  arrive  in  the  night.  ("  Didn't  want  to  let 
his  folks  know,"  he  said,  "  how  deuced  foolish  his  curiosity 
had  made  him.")  He  drove  under  the  "  shed  "  attached 
to  his  "  home  barn,"  and  quietly  took  the  box  down  into  a 
cellar  of  "  the  old  house  "  — an  old  dilapidated,  untenanted 
house,  in  which  some  of  the  products  of  the  farm,  and  a 
few  farm  tools,  and  some  old  barrels  were  kept ;  and  down 
into  the  cellar  of  the  old  house  he  went,  and  deposited 
there  the  box,  and  then  went  in,  "  washed  up,"  and  sat 
down  with  his  family  to  supper. 

After  supper  he  was  uneasy  to  investigate  the  package ; 
and  making  an  errand  "  to  the  barn/'  procured  an  old  can- 
dle, and  (forgetting  the  "  barn  ")  hastened  into  the  cellar, 
managing  to  fasten  the  cellar  doer  with  a  rope  which  he 
tied  to  the  handle.  He  said  he  did  this  for  fear  somebody 
might  see  a  light  through  an  end  "  winder  "  of  the  cellar, 
and  come  down  and  "  ketch  "  him  at  the  "  silly  job  ;  "  but 
I  have  my  suspicions  that  the  "  honest  farmer  "  had  other 
reasons  than  that  of  pride  for  his  secrecy.  He  put  the 
box  on  the  head  of  an  old  barrel,  and  the  candle  on  an- 
other, and  began  to  unfold  his  treasures.  Roll  after  roll 
of  "  old  brown  papers  and  newspapers  "  he  cut  off,  and 
wadding  them  up,  one  after  another,  laid  them  on  the  hr;ul 
of  the  barrel  on  which  stood  the  light,  or  threw  them  on 
the  floor. 

There  was  a  marvelous  waste  of  paper,  he  said,  in  "  doin' 
up  that  'are  box."  At  last  he  came  to  the  box  (a  small, 
oblong,  wooden,  affair  which  he  showed  me),  which  I 
should  think  to  be  about  eight  inches  in  length  by  four  in 


THE  GOOD   DONE.  639 

width  and  depth,  and  the  original  use  of  which,  if  it  had 
any,  I  could  not  conjecture.  The  cover  was  barely  tarki-d 
on.  Pulling  off  this,  he  presently  came  upon  a  few  scraps 
of  old  iron,  and  a  few  bits  of  what  he  thought  were  paving 
stones,  and  not  a  single  dollar  of  counterfeit  money  did 
his  search  reveal. 

At  the  bottom  of  the  box,  pasted  in,  was  a  paper,  on 
which  was  written,  in  a  bold,  quite  elegant  hand,  "  Old 
fool !  —  ha  !  ha  !  "  And  while  he  stood  contemplating  his 
folly,  and  holding  up  a  bit  of  the  old  iron  in  his  hand,  the 
heap  of  paper  on  the  other  barrel  (probably  warped,  or 
"  cockled,"  as  paper-men  would  express  it,  by  the  heat 
from  the  candle)  tumbled  over  into  the  flame  of  the  latter. 
The  old  man  said  this  frightened  him  at  first,  "  like  a  judg- 
ment "  on  his  folly,  and  he  had  close  work  for  a  minute  or 
two  to  put  out  the  fire.  "  I  thought  the  old  stairs  would 
ketch,"  said  he,  "  and  I  couldn't  get  up."  The  story  as 
he  told  it  (for  he  has  a  considerable  "  knack  at  story-tell- 
ing") was  not  a  little  amusing,  but  I  shall  make  no  attempt 
to  represent  it  here. 

The  counterfeit  money  speculators  have  no  notion  of 
getting  themselves  into  serious  legal  difficulties,  and  so 
long  as  they  only  swindle  such  men  as  the  "  honest  fann- 
er "  in  question,  the  authorities  of  New  York  will  proba- 
bly take  no  great  pains  to  disturb  them.  It  would  be 
rather  amusing  if  one  could  watch  the  countenances  of  the 
poor  dupes  as  they  open  their  packages.  Disappointed 
ambition,  "  castles  in  Spain  "  all  tumbled  down,  visions  of 
wealth  broken  into  clouds  upon  their  countenances,  would 
probably  be  the  tale  they  would  tell.  But  warnings  will 
do  this  class  of  people  no  good,  and  it  is  not  "  good  "  they 
seek ;  so  we  need  have  no  pity  for  them. 

If  the  counterfeit  money  speculators,  of  the  kind  I  hero 
speak  of,  do  no  good,  they  certainly  do  no  harm,  save  to 
the  regular  counterfeiters,  by  forestalling  their  field,  an. I 
getting  away  from  the  poor  dupes  money  winch  might 
otherwise  fall  into  the  "  regular  "  gentlemen's  hands.  But 


640  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

perhaps  the  result  in  the  long  run  may  be  beneficial  to 
the  "regular  trade,"  inasmuch  as  the  present  victim*, 
when  they  come  to  get  possession  of  the  real  counterfeit 
money,  may  buy  more  than  they  otherwise  would,  to  make 
up  their  former  losses.  In  this  they  will  imitate  other 
business  men,  who,  when  chancing  to  lose  by  one  attempt, 
ed  swindle,  balance  accounts  of  profit  and  loss  by  "  doub- 
ling "  in  a  successful  swindle,  or  as  gamblers  "  hedge  " 
their  bets  on  a  horse-race. 

At  any  rate,  the  "money-makers,"  whether  of  bank  bills, 
or  other  false  pretences,  "  regular  "  or  "  irregular,"  will 
always,  I  suppose,  manage  to  find  "  honest  farmers,"  and 
like  victims,  so  long  as  the  ignorance  of  the  people  sus- 
tains such  institutions  as  private  banks ;  and  it  matters  but 
little  whether  a  bank  bill  has  passed  under  the  eye  of 
"Jones,  president,"  and  "Williams,  cashier,"  or  not,  so 
long  as  it  is  well  "  executed  "  enough  to  "  execute  "  its 
own  mission,  which  is,  to  swindle  labor  out  of  its  just  dues. 
The  man  who  devised  paper  money  and  "  banking,"  as  it 
is  generally  conducted,  was  the  shrewdest  servant  that  the 
tyrant  and  sagacious  classes  ever  had  in  aiding  them  to 
keep  the  laboring  classes  subjected  and  "  contented  "  with 
being  robbed.  If  any  reader  thinks  my  estimate  of  that 
man's  clever  swindling  capacity  too  emphatic  or  high,  let 
him  sit  down  soberly,  and  consider  the  subject  in  all  its 
aspects,  beginning  with  the  cost  of  the  paper,  and  the 
thousand  profitable  uses  it  is  made  to  serve  for  the  money- 
manufacturer,  and  then  reflect  how  it  is  as  much  one 
man's  natural  right  to  "  make  money  "as  another's,  but  that 
the  few  manage  to  make  a  monopoly  of  the  business. 

The  fact  is,  that  the  counterfeiters  are  really  more  dem- 
ocratic than  the  bank  men,  and  only  stick  to  their  "  con- 
stitutional rights,"  —  the  right  of  individuals,  as  well  as 
of  bodies  politic,  to  manufacture  money.  If  the  State 
would  let  the  matter  of  money-making  alone,  and  abolish 
all  laws  regarding  it,  it  would  not  only  abolish  counterfeit- 
ers and  counterfeiting  thereby,  and  "  bogus  "  counterfel  "• 


A  TIIOMASTON,   CONN.,   VICTIM.  641 

speculators  also,  but  would,  in  so  doing,  leave  a  clear  field 
for  sensible  political  economists  to  work  out  a  plan  of  ex- 
change, in  which  some  justice  and  honesty  might  be  ob- 
tained. Till  then,  the  counterfeiters,  —  the  regular  bona 
fide  ones,  and  the  bogus  rascals,  too,  —  will  thrive  ;  for  no 
plan  of  "  making  money  "  is  found  so  ingenious  that  these 
capable  gentlemen  cannot  imitate  it. 

As  I  write  (Feb.,  1871),  I  note  in  a  Connecticut  newspa- 
per an  instance  of  the  operation  of  these  bogus  counter- 
feit money  speculators ;  and  what  surprises  me  a  little  is, 
that  their  victim  lives  within  four  or  five  hours'  ride  from 
New  York,  in  the  enterprising  village  of  Thomaston,  Litch- 
field  County,  Conn.,  which  connects  with  New  York  sev- 
eral times  a  day  by  railway.  It  appears  that  a  worthy 
dealer  in  "  oysters  and  vegetables  "  recently  received 
from  "  Chatfield  &  Co."  (professional  dealers  in  counterfeit 
money,  like  "  Ferguson  ")  a  box  marked  C.  O.  D.,  the 
charges  upon  which  were  ninety  dollars.  "  Of  course  " 
the  man  made  no  order  upon  "  Chatfield  <fc  Co."  They  sent 
the  box  voluntarily.  "  The  charges  were  promptly  paid  " 
(I  quote  from  the  newspaper  referred  to),  "and  the  box 
opened.  The  contents  proved  to  be  old  iron,  stones,  shav- 
ings, and  rubbish.  These  articles  can  be  bought  cheaper 
here.  A  factorizing  suit  was  quickly  served  on  the  ex- 
press agent  here,  the  money  detained,  and  by  due  process 
of  law  our  neighbor  .  .  .^will  get  it  back,  less  the  expenses 
of  the  law.  But  we  cannot  help  asking  the  question, 
Suppose  he  had  received  the  "  queer  "  instead  of  the  rub- 
bish for  the  ninety  dollars,  what  would  he  have  done  with 
it?  Charity  says  he  would  have  carried  it  to  the  nearest 
justice,  and  had  it  duly  stamped  counterfeit,  and  so  lost 
the  investment ;  "  and  the  article  quoted  from  facetiously 
adds,  "  If  it  had  been  any  one  less  honest  than  he  is,  we 
are  afraid  he  would  have  '  shoved  the  queer '  just  to  get 
his  mone}7  back,  with  a  reasonable  (say  two  per  cent.) 
profit.  After  all,  the  question  is  still  unanswered." 

"But  the  Thomaston  people  probably  have  more  persons 

25* 


642  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

in  their  midst  than  the  oyster  dealer,  who  think  that  coun- 
terfeit money  is  good  while  it  passes ;  and  they  should  not 
feel  sure,  without  looking,  that  they  have  not  in  their 
purses  more  or  less  of  the  "  real  genuine  article  "  of  coun- 
terfeit money,  especially  of  the  "  fractional  currency " 
kind  ;  and  it  may  be  that  some  of  the  good  housewives  and 
marketing  husbands  of  that  goodly  village  have  wittingly 
or  unconsciously,  from  time  to  time,  passed  so  much  of  it 
upon  the  unfortunate  dealer  in  oysters  and  vegetables,  as 
to  inspire  him  with  a  sense  of  its  great  "  convenience  in 
trade,"  and  so  he  thought  to  enjoy  the  blessings  thereof 
himself,  and  communicated  with  "  Chatfield  &  Co." 

Drawing  my  article  to  a  close,  I  was  about  overlooking 
a  fact,  which  I  ought  not  .to  forget  to  state  here,  in  regard 
to  the  "  honest  farmer."  I  had  a  little  business  transac- 
tion with  him  —  the  purchase,  in  fact,  of  a  few  pounds  of 
very  nice  butter,  which  I  took  home  with  me.  I  gave 
him  a  five  dollar  bill,  out  of  which  he  took  his  pay,  handing 
me  the  "  change,"  which  was  two  dollars  and  twenty  cents. 
I  took  it  (made  up  of  sundry  pieces  of  fractional  currency), 
and  gave  it  no  attention  beyond  rapidly  counting  it,  and 
chanced  to  place  it  in  one  division  of  my  wallet  by  itself. 
At  Springfield,  Mass.,  I  had  occasion  to  use  some  of  it, 
when 'I  found  that  a  fifty  cent  bill  of  it  was  counterfeit.  I 
considered  this  "  too  good  a  joke  to  keep  "  all  alone,  so  I 
sent  the  bill  on  to  the  "jolly  blacksmith  "  I  have  alluded 
to  before,  and  made  him  a  present  of  it,  with  the  sugges- 
tion to  him  to  present  it  to  the  "  honest  farmer,"  who,  to 
my  astonishment,  when  I  heard  of  it,  did  not  deny  that  he 
"  might  have  let  that  New  York  fellow  have  it ;  "  and  he 
modestly  took  it,  and  gave  another  bill  (supposed  to  not 
be  counterfeit)  in  exchange.  Whether  the  man  knew  it 
was  counterfeit  when  ho  gave  me  the  bill,  is  more  than  I 
dare  pay  here ;  but  his  neighbors,  on  reading  this,  will 
probably  decide  that  question  for  themselves.  — S. 


THE  DETECTIVE  SYSTEM. 


THE  NECESSITY  OP  THE  DETECTIVE  SYSTEM  GENERALLY  DISCUSSED  —  TUB 

STATE  OF  SOCIETY  WHICH  CREATED  IT THE  REGULAR  AND  IRREGULAR 

ROBBERS  THE  YOUNG  MAN  OF  INTELLIGENCE  ENTERING  UPON  ACTIVE 

LIFE,  A  PICTURE HE  NATURALLY  ALLIES  HIMSELF  TO  THE  TYRANT  AND 

ROBBING  CLASSES NO  HONESTY  IN  TRADE  —  TRADE  RULES;    AND  ALL 

ARE  CORRUPT NO  CONSCIENCE  AMONG  THE  TRAFFICKERS  —  LYING  A 

FINE  ART —  ALL  VILLAINS,  BUT  NONE  INDIVIDUALLY  AT  FAULT  — THE 
DETECTIVE  BELONGS  TO  THE  CORRUPT  GOVERNING  CLASSES  —  WEIGHING 

HIM GREAT  THIEVES —  "THE  PURVEYORS  OF  HELL  " — THE  ETERNAL 

TALKERS,  AND  WHAT  THEY  AMOUNT  TO  —  THE  USE  FOR  DETECTIVES 

AN  INCIDENT;  "CATCHING  A  FLAT"  —  THE  DETECTIVE'S  VOCATION  FUR- 
THER CONSIDERED —  HOW  THE  DETECTIVES  PROTECT  SOCIETY ILLUS- 
TRATIVE INCIDENTS A  CERTAIN  GREAT  DETECTIVE  DESCRIBED  

STRATAGEMS — WHAT  THE  PHILOSOPHERS  SAY  —  ON  THIS  WHOLE,  IS  THE 
DETECTIVE  SYSTEM  FROM  ABOVE  OR  BELOW? 

THE  chief  articles  of  "  Knots  Untied  "  being  in  typo,  I 
am  asked  by  the  publishers  to  add  thereto  my  views  upon 
the  detective  system  in  general.  Much  misjudgment  has 
been  indulged  in  by  some  in  regard  to  the  moral  merits  of 
the  system.  Indeed,  some  writers  have  been  so  rash  as  to 
condemn  it  altogether.  But  these  are  persons  of  very 
peculiar  mental  and  moral  construction,  in  my  opinion. 
They  have  not,  it  is  evident,  studied  deeply  or  thoroughly 
the  condition  of  things  which  demands  the  detective  sys- 
tem for  its  protection  and  support. 

It  has  been  most  wisely  said,  that  "  Society  creates,  for 
the  most  part,  the  crimes  which  it  punishes."  It  is  a  sad 
truth,  but  one  to  be  dispassionately  considered  —  not 
overlooked.  The  wonder  to  my  mind  is  that  there  are  not 
more  criminals  in  society  than  there  are,  so  heartless  are 
the  institutions  of  civilization  in  general,  so  lax  the  morali- 


644  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

ty  of  business  life,  so  hypocritical  the  common  tone  of  soci- 
ety everywhere,  from  among  the  least  up  to  the  greatest 
of  the  participants,  in  what,  as  a  whole,  we  call  a  commu- 
nity, a  town,  a  city,  or  a  nation. 

Everywhere  I  see  injustice  and  wrong  triumphing  over 
justice  and  the  right;  everywhere  petty  political  suc- 
cesses, vain  social  triumphs,  and  especially  the  victories 
of  wealth,  emulated  and  worshipped.  The  crown  for  whk-h 
the  child  is  usually  instructed  to  bend  all  his  efforts  hangs 
on  the  pinnacle  of  vanity  or  pride.  He  is  expected  to 
obtain  it  in  business  life,  by  gathering  under  his  feet  a 
pile  of  gold  high  enough  to  enable  him  to  stand  up,  and 
reach  out  his  hand  to  it ;  and  he  is  taught  that  it  is  no 
matter  how  he  gets  the  gold,  so  that  he  avoids  all  legal 
difficulties  in  the  way ;  and  he  is  further  instructed  that 
when  he  shall  have  acquired  a  certain  amount  of  gold  he 
need  fear  no  law,  for  he  can  buy  juries  and  judges  then, 
and  be  "  a  law  tinto  himself;  "  and  he  grows  up  to  manhood 
and  active  life  under  these  holy  instructions. 

Looking  around  him,  as  a  man,  he  sees  that  everybody  is 
striving  for  the  same  object  which  he  would  read  ;  and 
however  his  own  sense  of  right  may  disturb  him  in  his  first 
mistep  from  her  path,  he  soon  learns  that  the  "  common 
law,"  the  highest  morality,  in  other  words,  on  'Change,  is 
to  "  buy  at  the  lowest  possible  prices,  and  sell  for  as  much 
as  you  can."  He  becomes  extortionate  when  he  can,  and 
rejoices  in  whatever  panic  "  sends  up"  his  own  stocks,  for 
exam  pie,  although  it  may  ruin  a  thousand  others,  and  bring 
desolation  to  countless  homes.  He  sees,  if  he  lives  in  New 
York,  that  Wall  Street  is  a  den  of  thieves,  "  respectable  " 
ones ;  and  he  finds  its  counterparts  all  through  the  city, 
down  into  the  lowest  haunts  of  vice,  where  squalor  and 
want,  added  to  crime,  make  the  last  disreputable. 

But  his  mind  is  logical,  and  he  sees  that  there  is  no  dif- 
ference in  principle  between  making  a  "  corner  "  in  Wall 
Street,  and  thus  robbing  a  man  of  fifty  shares  of  a  given 
railroad  stock,  and  the  picking  of  his  pocket^  of  those 


THE  YOUNG  MAN   MEDITATES.  C45 

shares  in  the  graceful  way  in  which  the  chevaliers  d'in- 
dustrie  do  it.  He  sees  the  real  estate  owner,  who  has 
already  received  in  rents,  from  his  tenants,  ten  times  as 
much  money  as  a  certain  building  cost  him,  years  ago  (ex- 
clusive, at  that,  of  the  legal  interest  on  the  original  invest- 
ment), raising  the  rent  as  often  as  he  dare,  and  frequently 
ejecting,  into  the  merciless  world,  the  family  of  a  poor 
man  who  cannot  meet  the  advanced  rent,  on  the  one  side  ; 
and  on  the  other,  he  witnesses  a  highway  robber  snatch  a 
cloak  from  the  shoulders  of  a  man,  or  a  bundle  from  a  lady's 
arms  ;  or  a  sneak  thief  escaping  from  a  hall  door  with  a 
garment  in  his  hands ;  and  for  the  life  of  him  he  cannot 
see  any  real  moral  difference  in  the  two  "  sides  ;  "  on  both 
are  extortion  and  robbery. 

He  sees  vast  monopolies  arising,  and  breaking  down 
small  dealers.  He  sees  the  merchant  princes  absorbing 
the  businesses  once  conducted  by  smaller  traders,  and 
usurping  even  the  trades ;  so  that,  now.  for  example, 
several  hundred  dress-makers,  once  scattered  over  vari- 
ous parts  of  the  city,  and  then  living  in  a  good  degree  of 
independence,  are  to  be  found  gathered  in  a  herd,  if 
.they  have  employment  at  all,  the  merest  wages-slaves  of 
some  mercantile  lord  turned  manufacturer,  too,  as  well : 
or,  if  without  employment  by  some  large  house,  forced  by 
the  lower  rates  which  the  monopolists  charge  for  their 
poorly  paid-for  goods,  to  live  along  on  starvation  wages. 

In  short,  the  man  sees  about  him  the  greed  of  gain  in  all 
its  hateful  and  diabolical  phases  —  and.  he  meditates: 
"  This  is  the  world  I  am  born  into ;  this  the  field  I  must 
win  my  successes  in ;  there  are  but  comparatively  two 
classes,  —  the  successful  and  proud,  who  govern  every- 
thing, and  enjoy  everything,  and  the  unsuccessful  and  the 
wretched,  who  have  nothing  but  woes  and  toils,  and  who 
enjoy  nothing  —  but  what  they  have.  I  must  make  my 
choice  between  the  two.  I  cannot  suffer  myself  to  belong 
to  the  latter  class." 

Thus  determining,  he  enters  upon  the  busy  scenes  of 


646  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

life  ;  and  if  a  merchant,  he  misrepresents  his  goods,  for  lie 
knows  that  all  other  merchants  do  the  same ;  he  scruples 
at  no  falsity,  so  that  it  is  not  eo  palpable  and  clear  as  to 
defeat  his  chief  purpose  of  cheating,  —  the  achievement  of 
profits.  He  lies  to  enhance  in  the  purchaser's  eyes  the 
real  merits  of  his  wares,  and  he  lies  to  cover  up  their 
demerits.  He  hears  that  some  merchant  is  trading 
upon  a  reputation  he  has  somehow  acquired  of  being  an 
honest  dealer.  Laughing  in  his  sleeve  over  this,  —  for 
well  he  knows  that  an  honest  man,  in  the  competitive 
sphere  of  trade,  is  too  much  of  a  lusus  natures  to  have  an 
actual  existence, — he  casts  about  to  rival  the  other  in 
this  matter  of  profitable  reputation,  and  learn  "  how  he 
does  it."  He  finds  that  his  competitor  has  joined  Beech- 
er's,  or  some  other  popular  church,  and  gone  to  teaching 
Sunday  school.  He  follows  suit,  —  and  thus  makes  religion 
useful  and  available  in  trade. 

Taking  pains  to  get  his  church  membership  noised  about, 
he  now  adds  sanctimony  to  his  other  facial  graces,  and  lies 
with  a  more  effective  air  than  before.  If  a  merchant  in 
wet  goods,  he  goes  a  step  farther  than  before  in  their  adul- 
teration ;  if  in  dry  goods,  he  puts  upon  his  poorer  silks  and 
cottons,  etc.,  the  stamps  which  belong  to  better  ones ;  and 
so  he  lives  on  and  thrives,  and  builds  him  a  mansion  in 
Fifth  Avenue,  or  some  other  fashionable  quarter,  and  is  a 
man  beloved  and  respected,  and  powerful  among  the 
people. 

Or,  may  be,  he  turns  politician,  makes  his  way  into  the 
city  government,  sets  his  active  genius  to  work,  and  invents 
numerous  jobs  to  be  done  at  the  public  expense,  and  man- 
ages to  reap  a  hundred,  or  several  hundred  per  cent,  profit 
thereon ;  becomes  a  money-lord  and  a  chief  ruler,  and  is 
noted  and  respected,  and  for  his  thefts  of  millions,  perh;q>-. 
makes  restitution  by  a  large  munificent  donation  to  the 
poor  of  the  city.  Or  he  goes  into  Wall  Street,  and  robs 
and  swindles  there  till  he  gets  to  be  a  power,  and  lords  it 


"THE   HEATHEN   CHINEE."  G47 

over  sundry  railroad  and  other  vast  interests,  and  is  a  very 
demigod. 

In  all  he  is  a  representative  man ;  for  throughout  all  the 
departments  of  trade  and  business,  from  the  greatest  to^he 
least,  all  are  swindlers,  to  more  or  less  extent.  Nobody 
better  than  the  detective  knows  how  absurd  and  ridicu- 
lous it  is  to  talk  of  "  honesty  in  trade,"  for  he  is  quite  as 
likely  to  be  called  upon  to  ferret  out  and  arrest  a  forger  or 
a  cheat  in  the  respectable  ranks  of  business  as  he  is  to 
entrap  a  common  pickpocket.  The  detective  knows  too 
much  to  believe  in  the  honesty  of  any  one  as  a  trader.  He 
may  be  a  good-hearted,  companionable  fellow,  generous  to 
his  friends,  kind  to  his  family,  a  nobleman  by  nature,  but 
in  trade  he  is  dishonest ;  not  that  he  would  prefer  to  be  so 
even  there,  but  because  business  rules  and  customs  make 
him  so.  Take  the  most  nearly  just  man,  as  a  merchant  or 
manufacturer,  to  be  found  in  the  country,  and  prove  to  the 
detective  (or  any  other  man  well  informed  as  to  the  crafts 
of  business),  if  you  can,  that  that  trader  or  manufacturer 
will  not  ask  for  his  goods  as  large  a  profit  as  he  can  get, — 
always  the  market  price,  at  least,  —  and  think  himself  not 
only  not  wrong  in  so  doing,  but  actually  right,  no  matter 
how  the  "  market  price  "  is  made,  whether  by  the  withhold- 
ing from  the  market  of  a  large  amount  of  a  given  commod- 
ity in  order  to  "  raise  the  price  "  (which  is  simply,  in  other 
words,  to  rob  the  more)  or  not. 

I  have  never  known  a  half  dozen  traders  in  my  life  who 
had  any  moral  perceptions  on  this  point.  Lying  is  said 
to  be  a  fine  art  in  China.  Nothing  wrong  is  perceived 
in  it  by^  the  Celestials.  Just  as  some  people  have  no  ear 
for  music,  no  sense  for  the  harmony  of  sounds,  so  they, 
the  Chinese,  seem  to  have  no  sense  or  perception  of  the 
beauty  of  truth.  Just  so  in  the  business  life  of  our 
own  people  ;  hardly  a  man  of  all  sees  or  understands 
that  it  is  not  right  for  him  to  receive  as  great  a  profit  on 
his  goods  as  he  can  "  honorably  get "  (i.  e.,  no  matter  how, 
so  that  he  gets  it,  —  for  the  getting  is  the  soul  of  business 


648  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

life).  What  is  true  of  the  business  morality  of  New  York, 
is  true  of  the  trading  morality  of  the  whole  country.  New 
York  is  the  chief  market  town,  and  rules  in  prices  and 
motfes  of  dealing. 

The  trader,  with  lack  of  conscience  ;  the  lawyer,  whose 
interest  it  is  to  win  his  cases  at  all  hazards,  and  bring  his 
witnesses  up  to  the  right  point  for  victory  ;  the  broker, 
who  has  no  conscience  (save  when  not  pretending  to 
have  any) ;  the  manufacturers  of  flour  and  other  food  for 
the  market,  who  adulterate  their  goods,  or  pass  upon  the 
community  poor  ones  for  good  ones  (and  all  do  more  or 
less  of  this) ;  the  liquor  merchant,  who  poisons  his  wines 
and  brandies  with  strychnine,  etc.,  in  order  that  he  may 
give  them  a  "  bead,"  after  having  adulterated  them  as 
much  as  he  can :  the  quack-medicine  dealers,  and  the  ten 
thousand  other  comparatively  respectable  shams  and  cheats 
of  society,  are  all  on  a  plane,  in  point  of  principle,  with  the 
pickpocket  and  the  sneak  thief;  while  the  braver  men, 
who  rob  whole  railroads,  etc.,  at  a  time,  rise  to  the  dignity 
of  highwaymen.  And  there  is  still  another  class  of  moral 
worthies,  the  large  manufacturers,  who,  monopolizing  cer- 
tain great  industries,  force  the  poor,  through  their  necessi- 
ties, into  perpetual  slavery  to  them,  and  render  back  for 
their  hard  labor  just  enough  to  keep  them  from  the  grave, 
and  make  them  useful ;  and  these  occupy  the  position  of 
the  cruel  and  heartless* slaveholder. 

Let  not  the  reader  suppose  that  I  blame  any  of  these 
characters  individually.  Society's  laws  and  customs  make 
them  what  they  are.  They  must  be  so,  or  must  be  content 
to  be  of  the  oppressed  classes.  There  are  but  two  great 
classes  in  civilization,  —  the  oppressed  and  the  oppressors, 
the  trampled  upon  and  the  tramplers.  To  the  latter  class 
belongs  the  detective.  He  is  dishonest,  crafty,  unscrupu- 
lous, when  necessary  to  be  so.  He  tells  black  lies  when 
he  cannot  avoid  it ;  and  white  lying,  at  least,  is  his  chief 
stock  in  trade.  He  is  the  outgrowth  of  a  diseased  and 
corrupted  state  of  things,  and  is,  consequently,  morally 


THE  DETECTIVE'S   PALLIATIVE.  649 

diseased  himself.  His  very  existence  is  a  satire  upon, 
society.  He  is  a  miserable  snake,  not  in  a  paradise,  but  in 
the  social  hell.  He  is  a  thief,  and  steals  into  men's  confi- 
dences to  ruin  them.  He  makes  friends  in  order  to  reap  the 
profits  of  betraying  them.  He  is  as  bad  in  these  days 
as  was  his  prototype,  St.  Paul  in  his,"all  things  to  all  men," 
but  like  him,  he  is  defensible,  in  that  his  rogueries  and 
villanies  are  practised  for  other  people's  "  salvation "  or 
security,  and,  aside'from  the  fact  that  the  detective,  in  his 
calling,  is  often  degraded  to  a  sort  of  watchman  or  ordinary 
policeman,  to  help  the  big  thieves,  the  merchants,  etc.,, 
protect  themselves  from  the  small  thieves,  who  are  not 
able  to  keep  places  of  business,  and  to  perform  sundry 
other  undignified  work,  his  calling  is  a  very  noble  one,  and 
a  singularly  blessed  one,  inasmuch  as  it  is  the  only  one 
which  I  call  to  mind,  by  which  hypocrisy  is  elevated  into 
a  really  useful  and  beneficent  art. 

It  is  true,  as  I  lately  saw  in  a  cursory  glance  at  the  book 
notices  in  some  journal,  that  somebody  in  Europe  has 
written  a  work  entitled  "  The  Purveyors  of  Hell,"  in  which, 
with  the  keen  discrimination  of  an  intelligent  and  honest 
man,  he  inveighs  against  the  secret  service  and  detective 
system  as  an  immense  corrupter  of  mankind,  and  aims 
heavy  blows,  I  suppose,  at  it.  The  author,  I  think,  cannot 
be  far  from  right  in  his  abhorrence  of  the  system,  but  I  am 
afraid  that,  like  too  many  other  doctors  of  morals,  he  uses 
his  scalpel  on,  and  directs  his  medicines  to,  the  effects,  and 
not  the  causes,  of  the  evils  he  would  cure. 

The  detective  has  one  palliative  to  his  conscience  which 
the  criminal  and  thief —  be  he  a  regular  or  irregular  one, 
a  business  man  with  a  shop,  or  without  one  —  has  not ;  for 
he,  in  his  trickeries,  his  lies,  his  false  seeming,  his  un- 
scrupulous betrayal  of  his  victims,  has  ever  the  conscious- 
ness that  he  is  operating  as  an  aid  to  justice,  and  that  in 
her  cause  is  it  that  he  commits  whatever  outrages  he  may 
do  to  truth  and  fair  dealing.  His  position  is  paradoxical 
in  a  measure.  He  has  the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that  if 
38 


650  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

lie  lies  and  cheats,  he  is  no  worse  for  this,  in  a  business 
way,  than  his  neighbors,  and  that  his  frauds  are  exercised 
to  protect  them  in  keeping  whatever  ill-gotten  gains  they 
may  have  in  the  shape  of  property,  from  being  stolen  from 
them  by  some  of  the  rest  of  his  (and  their)  neighbors ;  or 
in  the  discovery  of  criminals,  such  as  murderers  and  assas- 
sins, in  order  that  they  may  be  punished,  to  satisfy  the 
majesty  of  the  law,  made  by  the  society  which  made  the 
criminals.  In  this  sense  he  is  a  public  benefactor,  and 
better  entitled  to  the  honors  he  wins  in  society  than  is, 
perhaps,  any  other  useful  citizen  of  the  governing 
classes. 

Whatever  is  bad  in  the  detective's  career,  society  lias 
created  for  him  to  perform,  and  compelled  him  to  do  it. 
However  unpleasant  to  himself  his  business  may  be,  he  has 
the  happiness  of  knowing  that  in  its  results  it  is  good,  — 
that  is,  if  it  be  good  to  preserve  the  present  order  of 
things ;  for  without  the  detective  the  laws,  such  as  they  are, 
could  not  well  be  enforced ;  for  so  cunning  have  the  crafts 
of  business  made  our  unfortunate  criminal  classes,  that  the 
ordinary  officers  of  the  law  cannot  surprise  or  entrap  them  ; 
and,  allowed  to  pursue  their  business  uninterrupted,  the 
pickpockets,  counterfeiters,  forgers,  bank-robbers,  and  so 
forth,  would  soon  monopolize  the  business  of  the  country 
to  the  disparagement  of  the  money  brokers,  grain  and 
cotton  exchangers,  the  land  speculators,  the  usurers,  the 
railroad  robbers,  the  wholesale  and  retail  merchants,  the 
private  bankers,  etc.,  who,  with  less  keen  talent  than  the 
independent  pickpocket  proper,  are  obliged  to  have  laws 
framed  to  help  them  in  their  iniquity,  while  he  operates 
against  the  law. 

To  preserve  the  weaker  of  the  cormorant  classes  in 
their  "  lawful "  pursuits,  therefore,  the  detective  is  abso- 
lutely a  necessity  in  society,  and  as  such  should  bo  as 
much  esteemed  as  any  other  necessity.  Obvious  is  it,  then, 
that  the  writer  of  the  work  alluded  to  — "  Purveyors  of 
Hell"  —  is  an  impractical  enthusiast  in  the  cause  of  ab» 


THE  TALKERS.  651 

stract  right  and  truth.  It  would  seem  that  he,  poor  man, 
believes  in  some  system  of  abstract  and  speculative  moral- 
ity as  a  governing  and  directing  force  in  society,  without 
any  regard  to  the  customs  of  trade,  etc.,  which  obtain  in 
a  civilization,  the  main  end  of  which  is  to  enable  its  chief 
individual  participants  to  "  make  money  "  by  various  means 
of  enticing  it  out  of  their  neighbors'  pockets  and  filching 
it  from  the  hands  of  labor. 

This  sort  of  abstract  morality,  spiritual  morality,  which 
is  talked  from  every  pulpit  in  the  land  to  audiences  com- 
posed, for  the  main  part,  of  people  who,  however  strict 
attention  they  may  pay  to  the  talkers,  punctuate  the  sen- 
tences of  their  discourses  for  them  with  scheming  thoughts 
of  what  they  are  going  to  do  in  a  busines-way  the  next 
day  —  has  failed  of  its  desired  results  often  enough,  one 
would  think,  to  confound  the  talkers.  The  wonder  to  me 
is  that  the  intelligent  classes  do  not,  more  than  they  do, 
look  things  squarely  in  the  face,  and  see  for  themselves 
how  utterly  hopeless  it  is  to  ever  do  without  the  detective 
in  society,  so  long  as  our  legislators  make  ten  laws  for 
the  protection  of  property  to  one  for  man;  so  long  as  the 
"  sacredness  of  property  "  is  a  phrase  which  sanctifies  the 
protection  of  all  ill-gotten  gains,  if  they  but  be  gotten  in 
some  regular,  or  not  too  irregular,  way,  even  more  surely 
than  it  covers  or  protects  the  products  of  actual  hard  labor, 
—  the  very  things  of  all  that  need  protection,  and  the  pro- 
tecting of  which,  in  the  hands  of  those  to  whom  they 
rightly  belong,  the  laborers,  would  secure  all  other  rights 
in  society ;  for  surely  the  defrauding  of  labor  is  the  radi- 
cal iniquity  of  the  age  (as  it  has  been  that  of  all  the  historic 
ages,  so  far  as  I  can  learn),  out  of  which  spring  all  the  rest 
of  the  corruptions  of  society. 

But  the  talkers  do  not  care  to  meddle  with  reforms 
which  have  a  wise,  radical  end  in  view.  They  hate  things 
which  are  radical.  They  dislike  to  disturb  the  "  founda- 
tions of  society."  They  are  wiser  than  their  Master,  and 
have  so  veiled  his  philosophy  and  teachings  of  a  politico- 


652  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

economical  kind,  that  he  would  not,  were  he  to  reappear 
on  earth,  here  in  New  York,  be  able  to  tell  the  difference, 
in  point  of  principle,  between  a  Wall  Street  broker,  owning 
the  chief  pew  in  one  of  the  talkers'  temples,  and  being  a 
principal  pillar  thereof,  from  one  of  those  wily  rascals 
whom  he  saw  fit  to  whip  out  of  the  sacred  places  some 
eighteen  hundred  and  thirty  odd  years  ago. 

In  those  days  the  detective  was  as  necessary  as  now ; 
and  it  was  by  his  aid,  probably,  that  the  society  of  Jeru- 
salem was  enabled  to  cohere.  But  the  money-makers 
became  so  sharp  and  subtle,  and  got  so  well  established  in 
the  practice  of  their  iniquities  in  the  very  Porch  of  the 
Temple,  that  it  became  necessary  for  the  great  Detective 
and  Reformer  to. come  out  of  Nazareth,  and  search  into 
their  "  ways  which  were  dark,"  and  expose  them.  In  fact 
it  would  seem  that  the  detective  system  has  the  approval 
of  very  high  authority,  —  so  wise  as  not  to  be  mistaken  as 
to  its  fitness  to  "  things  as  they  are,"  and  are  ever  likely 
to  be  till  some  method  is  invented  to  do  away  with  crimi- 
nals, by  making  crime  unattractive,  and  labor,  honest  toil, 
for  what  a  man  has  a  right  to  have,  and  no  more,  respect- 
able and  attractive. 

I  have  hinted  that  the  detective's  vocation  has  much  to 
do  with  "  ways  that  are  dark."  So  it  has  ;  and  it  might  be 
inferred,  perhaps,  from  what  I  have  said,  that  his  vocation 
has  a  bad  influence  upon  his  own  interior  nature.  It  is 
certain  that  it  has  no  great  tendency  to  elevate  and  refine 
him ;  but  it  would  seem  that  the  pursuit  of  devious  ways 
for  a  good  end  has  not  the  corrupting  influence  which  the 
practice  of  falsehood  for  the  mere  aggrandizement  of 
a  man's  individual,  selfish  interests,  exercises.  Detec- 
tives are,  for  the  most  part,  excellent  citizens  —  very  punc- 
tilious in  observing  the  laws,  themselves,  as  well  as  being 
social  regulators  to  enforce  others  to  respect  them,  also. 
Still,  whatever  the  intrinsic  moral  life  or  character  of  the 
detective  may  be,  his  art  is  a  devilish  one,  and  civilization 
is  responsible  for  it. 


UBIQUITY  OF  THE   DETECTIVE.  C53 

The  use  of  the  detective  to  society  is  not  fully  under- 
stood by  the  majority  of  the  people,  especially  in  country 
places  ;  and  visitors  to  a  city  like  New  York,  or  Philadel- 
phia, little  consider  how  much  of  their  peace  and  security, 
when  there,  depend  upon  the  quiet,  silent,  effective  opera- 
tions of  the  master  detectives,  The  citizen  or  stranger, 
on  visiting  a  great  mercantile  establishment  like  Stewart's 
up-town  store,  usually  but  little  understands  what  a  sys- 
tem of  detection  is  carried  on  there,  not  only  for  the  pro- 
tection of  Mr.  Stewart's  goods,  but  the  purses  of  his  cus- 
tomers, from  the  attractive  powers  of  the  graceful  pick- 
pocket's fingers.  But  the  amount  of  money  which  Stewart 
pays  out  annually  for  this  sort  of  protection  must  be  some- 
thing large.  In  this  way  is  dispensed  to  others  a  portion 
of  the  money  which  he,  as  a  merchant,  manages  to  win  for 
himself  from  the  labor-resources  of  the  country  by  the 
jugglery  of  trade.  There  seems  to  l}e  a  sort  of  poetic 
justice  in  this.  If  Mr.  Stewart,  and  the  other  enormous 
accumulators  of  wealth,  were  not  obliged  to  employ  others 
to  help  them  protect  it,  there  probably  would  be  left  to 
the  poor  but  little  else  than  the  liberty  to  die,  and  be 
buried  in  paupers'  graves,  at  a  more  early  date  after  birth 
than  is  now  their  wont  to  reach  those  hospitable  quarters. 

But  everywhere  throughout  a  great  city,  in  the  horse- 
cars,  in  Wall  Street,  in  all  the  great  stores,  at  the  churches 
on  Sundays,  in  the  lager-beer  gardens,  on  the  steamboats 
at  the  wharves,  on  the  ferry-boats,  throughout  the  large 
manufactories,  around  various  dens  of  iniquity,  at  the  thea- 
tres, etc.,  the  detective  is  at  his  work.  To-day  he  perhaps 
personates  one  character  ^to-morrow,  another.  To-day  he 
is  a  trader  from  the  West,  making  purchases  among  sundry 
dealers  in  tobacco,  perhaps ;  and  as  he  glides  around  their 
establishments,  prizing  this  or  that  stock  which  he  is  to 
purchase,  '  unless  he  can  do  better  elsewhere/  he  13 
carefully  noting  everything;  for  he  is  for  the  time  in 
the  employ  of  the  General  Government,  and  it  is  sus- 
pected that  the  tobacconists  are  defrauding  the  Treasury 


654  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

of  the  taxes,  and  he  is  in  pursuit  of  evidence  to  con- 
vict them.  Yesterday  he  hailed  from  New  Hampshire, 
perhaps,  and  iu  the  character  of  a  countryman,  was  getting 
an  insight  into  arts  by  which  a  sharper  was  fleecing,  not 
only  country  people,  but  some  of  the  residents  of  the  city, 
too,  by  inveigling  them  into  subscribing  for  stock  in  a 
fabulous  gold,  or  silver,  or  lead  mine,  or  some  great  col- 
onizing project,  and  inducing  them  to  advance  ten  or 
twenty  per  cent,  on  the  nominal  par  value  of  the  stock  as 
a  part  of  the  working  capital. 

The  detective,  in  the  character  of  the  countryman,  pre- 
senting himself  in  fancy  as  my  pen  traced  the  lines  next 
above,  memory  reverts  to  a  notable  instance,  which  I  con- 
ceive is  well  worth  recording  here,  wherein  a  detective 
friend  of  mine,  in  his  role  of  a  sort  of  Brother  Jonathan, 
from  New  Hampshire,  caught  a  bogus  gold-mine  specula- 
tor of  New  York  in  a  very  clever  way,  and  accomplished 
the  restitution  of  several  thousand  dollars  (which  had  been 
advanced  as  per  centage  on  the  stock  subscribed  for  by 
several  different  persons).  The  speculator,  who  was  a 
man  of  considerable  moneyed  means,  and  therefore  "  re- 
sponsible," and  thought  to  be,  of  course,  "  reliable,"  on  ac- 
count of  his  being  a  man  of  property,  had,  in  a  very  inge- 
nious manner,  organized  a  company  to  work  a  supposed 
gold  mine  in  Virginia.  He  was  president  of  the  "  com- 
pany," and  his  cousin  was  secretary.  A  northern  geol- 
ogist (a  professor  in  a  college  not  over  a  hundred  and 
fifty  miles  in  a  bee  line  from  New  York  city),  was  taken  by 
this  cousin  on  to  Virginia  to  examine  the  mine,  and  make 
a  report,  which  was  duly  done,  the  professor  making  a 
very  attractive  report.  He  found  considerably  more  gold 
to  the  ton  of  quartz  than  is  considered  among  miners  "  a 
fair,  average  yield."  The  mine  was  indeed  a  very  valu- 
able one  in  his  opinion,  and  would  have  been  so  iu  fact, 
if  his  conclusions  had  been  drawn  from  honest  premises ; 
but  the  poor  professor  had  no  suspicion  that  the  gold  he 
found  in  his  assay  of  the  quartz,  which  he  actually  saw 


IN  THE   ROLE   OF   COUNTRYMAN.  655 

taken  from  the  mine  in  question,  got  into  his  crucible  in  a 
mysterious  way,  and  never  belonged  to  the  quartz  which 
he  had  taken  so  much  pains  to  pulverize. 

The  president  had  so  deftly  drawn  up  the  printed  con- 
stitution, or  articles  of  incorporation,  and  by-laws  of  the 
company,  that  he  could  easily  and  legally  resign  his  posi- 
tion, and  withdraw  when  he  pleased  from  the  association, 
and  carry  off  all  the  funds  advanced,  without  fear  of  legal 
trouble  from  his  victims.  But  after  a  large  amount  of  the 
stock  had  been  subscribed,  and  the  advanced  assessments 
of  twenty  per  cent,  called  in  (when  somewhat  over  half 
the  nominal  stock  had  been  subscribed),  one  of  the  victims 
got  his  eyes  open,  and  wanted  his  money  back.  He  saw 
that  it  was  of  no  use  to  complain  to  the  president  (I  will 
call  the  latter  Sharp,  and  my  friend  the  detective,  Flat,  for 
short),  so  he  made  his  case  known  to  a  lawyer,  who  directed 
him  to  engage  Flat,  who,  he  thought,  and  thought  rightly, 
would  "  work  up  the  job  safely."  Flat  managed  to  get 
himself  into  Sharp's  acquaintance  outside  of  business  hours, 
as  a  curious  fellow,  —  a  nondescript  old  bachelor,  —  from 
Alton,  New  Hampshire,  owning  several  farms,  and  with 
more  money  than  he  knew  what  to  do  with. 

Of  course  Sharp  needed  him,  and  used  his  best  arts  to 
get  him  to  take  stock.  Flat  agreed  to  call  and  look  into 
the  "  darned  thing,"  and  if  he  liked  it  he'd  "  go  in."  He 
called.  Sharp  showed  him  the  books.  Flat  found  the 
amount  of  stock  subscribed  just  as  Sharp  told  him,  and  of 
course  was  pleased  at  first,  and  was  about  to  subscribe, 
himself —  when  a  "  notion  struck  him." 

"  See  here,"  said  he,  "  these  names  is  all  correct,  I 
guess.  I  don't  know  the  writiu' ;  but  how  do  I  know  they 
ar'  all  genooine  ?  " 

Sharp,  in  his  way,  "  satisfied  "  Flat  on  that  head. 

"  But,"  said  Flat,  "has  all  these  fellurs  paid  up  their 
'cessmeuts  ?  " 

Sharp  assured  him  they  had. 


656  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

11  Wa'al,  how  do  I  know  ?  I  doii't  see  no  proof  on't  here," 
said  Flat,  pointing  to  the  subscription  stock-book. 

Sharp  explained  ;  but  Flat  was  thick-headed,  and  would 
not  understand  or  believe  anything  till  Sharp  should  have 
entered  against  each  man's  name  the  amount  of  the  assess- 
ment he  had  paid,  and  '  then  he  would  take  his  pick  of 
'ein,  he  said,  and  go  and  ax  'em  right  to  thar  heads/  and 
ef  he  found  all  right,  he'd  subscribe,  and  '  go  in  his  full 
length.' 

Sharp  saw  nothing  not  flat  and  silly  in  this,  and  he 
agreed  to  it  of  course,  for  well  he  knew  that  all  the  stock- 
holders would  be  glad  to  get  more  money  into  the  treas- 
ury to  develop  the  mine  with.  They  would,  of  course,  all 
tell  Flat  that  they  had  paid  up,  and  so  confirm  Sharp's 
word.  Flat  quietly  visited  two  or  three  of  the  heaviest 
stock  holders,  and  informed  them  how  they.were  cheat- 
ed, and  they  became  as  anxious  as  his  employer  to  have 
the  scamp  caught ;  and  after  two  days,  Flat  called  again 
upon  Sharp,  taking  a  couple  of  modest  friends  along  with 
him,  of  whom  he  could  manage  .to  make  witnesses  in  an 
emergency.  Sharp  was  all  ready,  greeted  him  cordially, 
pointed  out  to  him  carefully,  and  with  much  apparent 
pride,  the  names  of  the  stockholders  who  had  paid  up 
their  assessments,  and  explained  to  him  that  certain  checks 
he  had  put  against  their  names  meant  that  they  had  paid, 
and  showed  how  much  each  had  paid. 

Flat  was  a  little  thick-headed,  but  saw  "  straight "  at 
last.  "  I  declare,"  said  Flat,  "  that  are's  famous,"  taking 
hold  of  the  book ;  "  neow  do  tell  me  what  your  expenses 
is  in  runnin'  this  here  company?  What  d'they  charge 
you  for  this  here  nice  book,  to  begin  with  ?  "  (The  book 
was  gotten  up  with  considerable  care  as  to  appearances.) 

Sharp  thought  it  a  stupid  question,  but  humored  Flat, 
and  told  him  that  it  was  worth  twenty-five  dollars ;  but  that 
he  had  an  eye  to  economy  for  the  company,  and  "jewed  " 
down  the  price  to  eighteen  dollars. 

"  Wa'al,"  said  Flat,  "  that's  cheaper  an'  I  can  git  one 


CATCHING  A  FLAT 


THE  DETECTIVE  MUST  BE   SELF-RELIANT.         659 

anywheres  else;  guess  I'll  take  it;  talk  of  gittin'  up  a 
company  myself;  "  and  he  appropriated  the  book,  to  Sharp's 
amazement. 

He  had  all  he  wanted ;  evidence  enough  as  to  who  had 
been  swindled,  and  how  much,  etc.  The  matter  was  all 
brought  down  to  a  point,  and  Sharp  was  arrested  by  one 
of  Flat's  friends,  while  Flat  bore  away  the  book  to  a  safe 
place.  Suffice  it,  that  Sharp  was  so  securely  caught  that 
he  did  not  go  home  to  his  pleasant  residence  in  New  Jersey 
that  day  so  early  as  usual,  or  not  until  every  dollar  he  had 
swindled  from  his  victims  was  secured,  and  in  the  way  of 
getting  back  to  their  hands.  This  was  "  Catching  a  Flat  " 
with  a  vengeance  for  Mr.  Sharp. 

But  this  is  only  an  illustrative  case  of  the  best  and  most 
honorable  class  of  the  detective's  work,  and  one  of  the 
comparatively  "  genteel  "  cases  too.  His  field  of  labor  is 
usually  more  thorny,  and  his  work  at  times  not  only  very 
perplexing,  on  account  of  the  subtle  characters  he  has  to 
deal  with,  but  very  laborious  in  view  of  the  much  travel- 
ling, nights  and  days,  which  many  jobs  occasion.  The 
tracking  out  of  bank  robbers,  searching  for  the  hiding- 
places  of  their  stolen  treasures,  and  various  like  things, 
will  suggest  the  great  amount  of  real,  hard,  physical  labor 
the  detective  sometimes  has  to  perform.  Only  he  can  do 
it.  He  cannot  delegate  his  powers  to  any  great  extent. 
If  he  employs  others,  it  is  only  as  aids,  not  as  substitutes. 
He  is  expected  to  know  everything  in  the  ways  of  busi- 
ness regular  and  business  irregular.  If  he  would  succeed 
as  a  detective  of  bank  robbers,  especially,  he  must  not 
only  know  all  the  rogues  of  that  class,  but  he  must  under- 
stand what  class  of  "  workmen  "  they  are ;  for  these  indus- 
trious, hard-working  bank-robbers  all  have  different  ways 
of  doing  their  work ;  possess  different  degrees  of  skill ; 
and  when  the  robbery  of  a  bank  is  reported  to  a  detect- 
ive, his  first  inquiry  is  directed  to  the  manner  in  which 
the  "  work  "  was  done. 

Some  workmen  of  this  class  have  very  little  skill  of  a  me- 

26 


C60  KNOTS   UNTIED. 

clianical  kind.  They  do  their  work  bunglingly,  and  never 
attempt  very  difficult  jobs.  Others  are  very  skillful ;  are 
ready  to  undertake  anything.  The  most  skillful  bank-rob- 
bers, of  twenty  or  twenty-five  years  ago,  would  only  bo 
bunglers  now.  The  thousand  new  devices  for  safe-locks, 
security  of  vaults,  and  so  forth,  would  entirely  confound 
them.  But  as  geuius  makes  progress  in  the  arts  of  security, 
the  bank-robbers  keep  pace.  Their  profession  increases 
in  dignity  among  themselves  in  proportion  to  the  new  and 
great  difficulties  which  they  surmount.  They  are  of  differ- 
ent classes,  of  different  degrees  of  merit  in  their  vocation, 
and  the  detective  must  know  at  once  by  their  "  chips  "  to 
what  class  belonged  the  scamps  who  robbed  this  or  that 
bank ;  ibr  if  he  did  not  know  he  would  be  liable  to  get  on 
the  wrong  track,  and  so  the  scamps  would  gain  all  the 
time  they  need  for  putting  themselves  in  perfect  security. 
And  the  detective  must  know  the  character  and  relative 
"standing"  of  the  members  of  other  divisions  of  the 
"  cross  "  classes,  as  they  are  designated  in  the  technical 
phrase  of  the  profession. 

So  the  detective's  calling  is  one  which  demands  not  only 
much  cunning,  but  much  general  and  accurate  knowledge 
of  human  character,  and  not  a  little  acquaintance  with  all 
sorts  of  business.  He  may  be  illiterate,  as  many  an  excel- 
lent detective  is,  for  he  has  perhaps  climbed  up  from  un- 
fortunate and  poor  early  surroundings  by  force  of  his 
natural  abilities,  and  not  by  any  adventitious  aid  of  the 
schools.  If  he  cannot  solve  problems  of  the  higher  math- 
ematics, he  can  unravel  mysteries  which  would  confound 
a  Newton  or  a  Laplace  ;  and  to  keep  pace  with  the  "  en- 
lightened progress  "  of  bank-robbers,  counterfeiters,  and 
so  forth,  the  dectective  must  not  only  be  alert,  but  clear- 
headed. He  must  be  honest,  too,  punctiliously  so  in  a 
business  sense ;  for  he  must  keep  within  certain  limits, 
observe  certain  rules  of  honor  in  his  dealings  with  thieves 
and  outlaws,  otherwise  he  would  often  find  himself  lacking 
in  one  case  evidence  which  he  wants  in  another;  or  having 


THE  INVISIBLE   GUARDIANS.  661 

one  scoundrel  in  his  power,  could  never  use  him  as  state's 
evidence  to  criminate  another,  his  confederate,  and  a  more 
dangerous  person  than  he  ;  for  there  is  certainly  "  honor 
among  thieves,"  as  among  other  business  men.  There 
must  be  a  certain  degree  of  it,  else  business  itself  would 
die  out  or  go  into  anarchy.  Honor  enough  to  preserve 
the  integrity  of  his  business  every  thief  has.  The  detec- 
tive could  not  afford  to  have  less  than  the  thief.  He  is  a 
sort  of  prince,  in  the  thieves'  opinion.  He  is  the  only 
man  for  whom  they  have  any  real  respect. 

With  the  detective  the  thief  usually*"  keeps  faith,"  if 
he  plights  him  his  "  word  and  honor  as  a  gentleman ! " 
(Strange  words  to  fall  from  a  thiefs  mouth,  but  after  all 
a  most  appropriate  source ;  for  a  true  man  has  no  need  to 
indorse  his  yea  or  nay  with  an  oath  of  honor.)  The  de- 
tective is  a  powdr  among  the  thieves ;  his  are  the  laws 
they  obey.  They  fear  only  him.  He  is  a  necessity,  then, 
for  protecting  society  against  the  frauds,  [s] peculations, 
and  robberies  of  these  irregular  business  men.  He  governs 
the  cities,  and  protects  them,  so  far  as  controlling  the  ra- 
pacity of  the  irregular  robbers  is  concerned.  But  few 
people  resident  of  a  city  like  New  York,  and  but  few 
strangers  coming  to  the  city,  consider  or  ever  know  how 
continually  they  are  under  the  protection  of  the  invisible 
detective  ;  invisible  to  them,  but  "  seen  and  known  of  all 
men  "  in  the  irregular  vocations  of  business. 

The  detective  is  ever  about  in  public  places,  exercising 
his  calling  for  the  protection  of  the  thousands  who  know 
him  not.  For  example,  strangers  from  the  country  visit- 
ing New  York  generally  attend  the  theatres,  more  or  less, 
especially  if  they  are  very  puritanic  at  home,  and  some  such 
play  as  the  Black  Crook  is  ruling  at  Niblo's,  for  instance. 
Of  course"  the  country  gentlemen,  whether  deacons,  or 
what  not,  in  their  respective  rural  districts,  must  see  the 
"  sensations."  What  else  do  they  come  to  New  York  for, 
to  be  sure?  On  business?  Yes,  the  detective  who  knows 
them  all,  and  can  tell  at  sight  from  what  parts  of  the  coun- 


KNOTS   UNTIED. 

try  they  individually  come,  knows  that  they  visit  New 
York  "on  business;"  for  he  sees  them  at  the  theatres, 
and  often  gets  sight  of  them  going  into  places  where  very 
wise  people  do  not  go,  but  where  wisdom  of  a  certain  sort 
is  to  be  obtained  nevertheless ;  and  so  he  knows  that  they 
come  to  the  city  only  on  business.  But  he  keeps  an  eye 
out  fur  them  constantly. 

They  go  to  Ni bio's,  perchance,  to  see  some  spectacular 
play,  like  the  "  White  Fawn,"  or  the  "  Black  Crook,"  to 
which  we  have  referred  before.  They  go  in  great  crowds. 
They  have  their f<  Sunday  clothes"  on,  watch  chains  in 
sight,  pocket-books  insecurely  guarded,  etc.,  and  they  sit 
out  the  hours  and  listen  to  the  play,  and  are  delighted,  and 
go  quietly  out,  away  to  their  hotels,  or  among  their  friends, 
unconscious  all  the  while  that  at  the  theatre  they  owed 
their  security  from  pickpockets,  and  that  class  of  skilled 
gentlemen,  to  a  single,  quiet  man,  whom  they  may  not 
have  deigned  to  cast  a  look  upon  as  they  passed  through 
the  vestibule  -into  the  body  of  the  theatre ;  but  he  was 
there,  having  a  care  for  them  all.  He  is  one  of  the  chief 
men  of  his  vocation  in  the  land  or  the  world.  The  thieves 
and  pickpockets  all  know  him,  and  respect  him. 

Standing  near  by  the  gateway  in  the  railing  which 
crosses  the  vestibule,  is  this  gentleman  to  be  seen.  He  is 
of  rather  more  than  medium  height  —  a  muscular,  but  not 
large  man,  has  a  face  of  regular  cast  of  features,  and  a 
very  fine  intellectual  brow.  He  is  rather  more  than  a 
good-looking  man ;  a  handsome  man,  indeed  ;  and  a  gentle- 
man of  courteous  manners.  He  is  always  well  dressed, 
but  never  over-dressed;  he  exercises  excellent  taste  in 
this  respect.  He  is  the  only  man  in  New  York,  perhaps, 
who  could  perfectly  fill  the  place  he  occupies  in  that  ves- 
tibule now  as  the  guardian  of  the  thousands-  who  pass 
through  that  little  gate.  He  seems  not  to  be  observing 
anything  in  particular  ;  but  you  may  hear  him  as  you  pass 
through  the  gate,  perhaps,  speak  to  some  one  in  the  crowd 
moving  on  with  you ;  and  turning  about,  you  observe  that 


FRATERNITY  OF  TIIE   «  CROSS  "  CLASSES.  G63 

a  fine-looking  gentleman  has  stepped  aside  to  speak  with 
the  accomplished  public  guardian,  Wm.  George  Elder  (for 
that  is  his  name),  and  the  gentleman  whom  he  has  quietly 
called  to  him  is  an  accomplished  pickpocket.  The  detec- 
tive is  informing  him  that  he  must  not  go  in  now ;  some 
other  night,  perhaps,  he  may.  That  pickpocket  has,  per 
haps,  been  long  away  from  the  city,  for  years,  at  Boston,  of 
New  Orleans,  and  thought  the  detective  had  forgotten 
him.  But  the  detective  has  an  excellent  memory,  and  he 
never  forgets  his  "  friends,"  he  says ;  and  this  pickpocket 
he  had,  years  ago,  enrolled  among  the  best  of  his  friends, 
because  he  had  taken  his  advice,  and  left  the  city,  with  the 
promise  never  to  return ;  and  the  detective  gently  re- 
minds him  of  his  promise  and  his  "  honor ;  "  and  the  pick- 
pocket, all  smiles,  and  graciousness, —  for  he  is  a  very  gen- 
tleman in  his  line  of  business,  —  bows  himself  off. 

One  after  another  the  detective  arrests  the  pickpockets 
quietly,  and  sends  them  away.  None  of  them  whom  he 
has  ever  seen  escapes  him,  however  much  disguised.  But 
there  may  be  some  new  ones,  some  lately  arrived  from 
London  (the  fruitful  mother  and  skillful  educator  of  this  en- 
terprising class  of  our  fellow-men),  or  from  somewhere  else, 
whom  the  detective  has  never  seen,  and  who  have  passed 
in.  But  pickpockets  have  a  brotherhood  of  their  own, 
and  the  stranger  pickpockets  find  their  way  to  the  resi- 
dent ones  at  once '  so  to  keep  watch  on  a  strange  one 
who  may  possibly  have  entered,  the  detective,  perhaps, 
allows  one  or  two  of  the  resident  gentlemen  to  go  in,  and 
makes  them  responsible  for  whatever  watches  or  pocket- 
books  may  be  lost  there  on  the  given  night. 

The  pickpockets  so  admitted  plight  him  their  word  that 
they  will  not  "  work  "  there  that  night,  and  they  keep  it ; 
aud  if  some  other  pickpocket,  still  a  stranger  to  the  de- 
tective, carries  on  his  business  there,  the  resident  pick- 
pockets are  sorely  grieved,  for  they  feel  that  their  honor 
has  been  trifled  with  and  imperilled,  and  they  are  sure 
to  hunt  out  the  stranger  gentlemen,  and  make  him  disgorge, 


GG4:  KNOTS  UNTIED. 

on  the  principle  of  the  honor  and  respect  which  one  mem- 
ber of  their  fraternity  is  bound  to  show  to  another.  A 
higher  law  rules  among  these  people  than  among  tho 
regular  or  legalized  pickpockets  in  the  business  world 
generally.  Thus,  by  wise  stratagem,  the  detective  causes 
one  villain  to  keep  another  "honest,"  or  inoffensive  at 
least. 

This  particular  officer  is  not  always  at  that  given  post 
on  play  nights  ;  but  he  may  be  often  seen  there,  and  he 
is  a  splendid  specimen  of  the  genus  detective.  It  would 
be  difficult  to  find  in  any  business  vocation  a  more 
thoroughly  effective  and  true  man  than  he  ;  but  he  hon- 
ors the  calling,  and  not  the  calling  him.  Without  him  and 
his  fellow-detectives  the  civilization  of  New  York  could 
not  be  maintained,  and  throughout  the  country  a  sort  of 
anarchy  would  bear  sway.  Vigilance  committees  would 
be  needed  in  all  our  cities,  and  be  made  up  of  inexpe- 
rienced citizens,  who,  not  knowing  what  to  do,  would 
make  confusion  more  confounded,  and  run  riot  themselves 
at  last.  But  the  skilled  "  vigilance  committee,"  the  edu- 
cated detectives,  keep  things  in  order. 

On  the  whole,  I  am  of  the  opinion  that  the  detective 
system,  with  all  its  crafts  and  hypocrisies,  its  "  higher 
law,"  or  law  of  "  expediences,"  which  is  constantly  break- 
ing in  upon  common  law  and  the  statute  law  of  the  States 
against  the  compounding  of  felonies,  etc.,  etc.,  is,  not- 
withstanding all  that  may  be  said  against  it,  one  of 
the  very  best  institutions  or  features  of  our  corrupt  civili- 
zation, whether  we  regard  the  physical  powers  or  the 
spiritual  powers  that  be  in  its  midst.  It  is,  at  least,  the 
silent,  secret,  and  effective  Avenger  of  the  outraged  Ma- 
jesty of  the  Law  when  everything  else  fails,  and  must 
fail,  to  bring  certain  irregular  members  of  society  into 
order.  And  if  there  is  any  merit  in  sustaining  our  cor- 
rupt, abominable  civilization  as  it  is,  then  the  detective's 
value  cannot  well  be  overrated.  But  there  are  social  phi- 
losophers who  hold  that  it  is  a  sin  to  perpetuate  things  as 


OF   "HEAVEN"   OR   "HELL"?  665 

they  are,  and  who  teach  that  society  can  never  be  reformed, 
and  justice  rule,  protecting  the  rights  of  labor  against  the 
rapacity  of  greedy  tyrants,  etc.,  etc.,  until  it  shall  have 
first  become  disintegrated  in  all  its  present  parts,  and  be 
reconstructed ;  that  out  of  the  rotten  particulars  of  which 
the  general  whole  is  now  composed  nothing  worthy  can  be 
wrought;  and  that  disintegration  cannot  come  too  soon, 
even  if  through  all  possible  calamities.  In  the  view  of 
these  men  the  detective  system  is  but  a  power  exercised 
in  an  unholy  cause ;  a  necessary  part  of  an  unnecessary 
system  of  wrong.  Between  the  philosophers  and  the  gen- 
eral public  I  leave  the  detective  system,  unwilling  to 
assume  to  decide  for  others  whether,  on  the  whole,  it  fell 
from  "  heaven  "  or  sprang  from  "  hell." 

But  while  I  would  not  undertake  to  determine  for  others 
the  metaphysical  (?)  question  above  raised,  I  feel  it  proper 
to  add  for  myself,  that  although  most  of  my  relations  with 
the  police  during  my  whole  period  of  office  were  pleasant 
enough,  so  far  as  my  brother  officers  were  concerned  (some 
of  whom,  indeed,  I  hold  in  cordial  esteem);  yet  the  duties 
of  my  position  were  frequently  obnoxious  to  my  taste  and 
— perhaps  I  will  be  pardoned  for  so  expressing  myself — to 
my  better  nature.  My  adoption  of  and  continuance  in  the 
profession  were  not  acts  of  choice,  or  volition,  in  the  sense 
of  what  sundry  more  or  less  clear-headed  theologians  call 
"  free  agency" ;  but,  rather,  the  practical  expressions  or 
verifications  of"  foreordination"  perhaps,  or  in  other  words, 
the  results  of  the  "  force  of  circumstances,"  in  conflict  with 
which  I  was  powerless  ;  and  I  felt  relieved  of  a  great  bur- 
den when  fate  permitted  me,  at  last,  to  forego  my  honors 
as  a  detective  policeman. 


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